By Keith Leslie
TORONTO (CP) - Though he probably could have borrowed the tried-and-true Conservative pre-election tactic of middle-class tax relief for Ontario voters, the Liberal government opted instead for the high road in its latest provincial budget, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday.
That meant helping poor families and making child poverty a major priority - a move analysts say had less to do with improving the lives of Ontario's underprivileged than with shoring up votes and staving off the encroaching New Democrats.
However, McGuinty may have miscalculated in the runup to Ontario's Oct. 10 vote by ignoring the suburban, middle-class taxpayer, experts say.
Unlike the federal budget introduced Monday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, which spread money far and wide to attract voters, McGuinty said it's simply not his government's style to offer "trinkets and baubles" to help win votes.
"So, for Ontarians who are asking, 'Look, you put $2.1 billion into poor kids, what about a tax cut for me,' I'm saying, understand: this is a matter of enlightened self interest," he said after having breakfast with Grade 4 and 5 students at a Toronto school.
"We need those kids to be at their very best so they can grow stronger and our economy will go stronger, and help all of us."
With a trip down the campaign trail in the cards for both the federal Conservatives and the Ontario Liberals, it came as a surprise to some that their two budgets, delivered just days apart, took such divergent political paths.
Failing to offer a tax break or other pre-election goodies could hurt the Liberals, but they likely have some money in reserve for exactly those sorts of announcements later this year, said Greg Inwood, a politics professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.
"It's a risk, it's a strategic, political calculation, and somebody somewhere has been sifting through the polling and focus group tea leaves for them," Inwood said. "They may have some things in reserve that they're planning to dish out as things get a little hotter."
Perhaps sensing disappointment in his core constituency, Opposition Leader John Tory the provincial budget should have at least started to cut the unpopular health care tax the Liberals introduced to howls of protest in their first budget in three years ago.
That tax, originally billed as an annual health "premium" of up to $900 per worker, will be eliminated if the Conservatives win the Oct. 10 election, Tory vowed.
"I think there should be a signal sent immediately, and a government led by me would send them one," he said. "We're going to acknowledge that (taxpayers) deserve some relief from this health tax that (should) never have been imposed to begin with."
Despite the outrage that ensued after the tax was imposed - voters and critics saw it as breaking McGuinty's solemn promise not to raise taxes - the premier said he won't even consider phasing it out before 2009.
"I will not compromise either our ability to balance our budget or the quality of health care that we're delivering to Ontarians, through some premature elimination or partial reduction of the health care premium," he said.
Inwood said the Liberals may be forced to re-think their position on the health tax if Tory's popularity starts rising as the election campaign draws closer.
"If Tory makes enough of that promise to eliminate it, then I wouldn't be surprised if the Liberals come up with the same suggestion, and all of a sudden the circumstances appear to be fiscally right to eliminate it just before October."
Inwood said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's budget didn't play to the Conservative's core constituency because it was full of "Liberal-style big spending," while McGuinty's budget also ignored the Liberals' core support in the middle class to take on social issues normally pushed by New Democrats.
He said the Liberals were clearly more worried about the New Democrats than the Conservatives because the NDP has taken three seats from the government since the 2003 election, but warned that could leave suburban, middle-class voters wide open for the Tories.
"I think McGuinty was primarily worried about his left flank because of the NDP's byelection victories, said Inwood. "But it may also have to do with the fact that's been pretty much a wasteland in the last decade or so for the Liberal party."
Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press