EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
The budget is also meant to prepare Ontario for "all the people that come to Ontario," the finance minister said. The federal immigration department said Canada had 431,645 new permanent residents last year, with more than half of them settling in Ontario, according to Bethlenfalvy. The federal government plans to admit more permanent residents each year from 2023 to 2025.
Similar to previous remarks, Bethlenfalvy said "the thing that keeps me up more than anything" is Ontario's growing labour gap and the challenge of filling it. Specifically, he talked about "the skilled trades, health-care educators, early educators, health-care professionals" as jobs that Ontario needs to fill.
The finance minister also mentioned specifically the government's ongoing efforts to attract "advanced manufacturing" to Ontario, including building electric vehicles, advancing its critical minerals strategy, and working on "advanced technology in life sciences." The 2023 budget will be the third Bethlenfalvy will introduce as finance minister.