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Ontario was leading the country in job creation before the pandemic, he said, adding that \u201cwe\u2019re going to continue (on) that path\u2026 in a laser-focused way.\u201d<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that renewed and extended lockdowns \u2014 now province-wide for all non-essential businesses \u2014 are painful for the affected firms. But he said the province has been taking advice from public health and medical experts when making such decisions, and is providing millions of dollars in support to businesses including grants and relief on property taxes and energy bills as a \u201cbridge to the other side\u201d of the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cOur decisions are very much driven by the health and safety and the guidance that we\u2019re getting from the experts,\u201d he said, adding that his government is also \u201cvery mindful of the difficult environment that many families and workers and businesses across the province have to face.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he believes businesses and workers in the province will prove to be \u201cresilient\u201d as his government unfurls more than $15 billion in supports over the next three years, as announced in November\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n Bethlenfalvy added that the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines \u2014 though criticized by some as being too slow as cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to climb \u2014 should provide a \u201cno pun intended, shot in the arm\u201d to public health and ultimately the economy.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very optimistic about not only the rollout but getting this economy back on its feet and stronger than before, both from a health point of view and from a business point of view \u2014 those things are linked,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n Article content continued Ontario was leading the country in job creation before the pandemic, he said, adding that \u201cwe\u2019re going to continue (on) that path\u2026 in a laser-focused way.\u201d He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/6989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
‘I think there’s hope’: New Ontario finance minister Peter Bethlenfalvy ‘laser-focused’ on economic recovery<\/a>
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2021-01-04 16:51:16<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"