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Ontario government tops Canada’s corporate welfare charts as business subsidies jump more than 200 per cent over the past decade

2 minutes
  • Subsidies to businesses cost Ontario an estimated $713 per resident per year.

Montreal, July 10, 2026 – Ontario could offer the lowest corporate tax rates in North America if it replaced its business subsidies with general corporate tax cuts, points out the MEI.

“This is not widely known, but Ontario now outspends Quebec in corporate welfare and has been doing so for years,” notes Renaud Brossard, vice president of Communications at the MEI. “Unfortunately for Ontarians, emulating the tax and spend approach that failed in Quebec will not yield better results for them.”

Corporate subsidies have risen from over $2.9 billion in 2014 to $11.5 billion in 2024, the latest year for which data is available. Adjusting for inflation, this represents an increase of 209 per cent over ten years, and amounts to $713 per Ontarian.

In the same year, 2024, the Quebec government spent $8.5 billion on subsidies, some $3 billion less than the government of Ontario.

Reducing the corporate tax burden

During the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the Ontario government collected $27.8 billion in corporate taxes.

Based on the average amount spent on corporate welfare between 2014 and 2024, the MEI estimates that eliminating subsidies and using the savings to lower the corporate tax rate instead would allow the government of Ontario to reduce corporate taxes from 11.5 per cent to 4.75 per cent.

Together with federal corporate taxes, the new combined rate would be 19.75 per cent. An MEI Viewpoint released last year observed that this would give Ontario the most attractive corporate tax rate in North America.

“Unlike subsidies, lower taxes would benefit all Ontario entrepreneurs equally without risking billions of dollars in taxpayer funds,” concludes Brossard. “Ontarians deserve better from their government than gambling their money on a handful of costly pet projects.”

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship

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