As MPPs prepare to return to the legislature on April 3rd it's time to preview some of the issues that will make their way onto the nightly newscasts from Queen's Park.

First up is Budget 2000. Not long after the daily grind of the legislature gets back in gear expect to hear an announcement from Finance Minister Ernie Eves and a date for the tabling of his fifth budget.

This budget will be Ontario's first balanced budget in recent memory and only one of a handful of balanced budgets in the last 100 years. Taxpayers should expect further income tax cuts as promised in the 1999 provincial election.

Also look for Mr. Eves to end provincial bracket creep and hopefully, institute a more aggressive schedule of provincial debt reduction. These were two key recommendations from the CTF pre-budget submission to the Finance and Economic Affairs Committee on February 16. The only problem with Budget 2000 is the timing. The fiscal year begins on April 1st but Minister Eves is not expected to table his budget until April 10th or 17th meaning that the provincial government's spending authority is derived from "special warrants."

This practice (while not unique to Ontario) is a violation of the spirit and true purpose of special warrants. They should only be used in times of war, environmental disaster and the like to allow the operations of government to proceed. To continue to deliver budgets into the late weeks of April or even early May simply because it is convenient or fits with the legislative schedule is offensive.

The Ontario government has no mandate and no budget to spend a single penny after March 31, 2000 … yet the public and opposition let them get away with it, it's just plain wrong. Aside from Budget 2000, expect to also hear about gas prices, health care and education.

The opposition will get on its mighty high horse once again and rail about high gas prices. The provincial government will in turn blame the oil companies for a price fixing conspiracy (which doesn't exist) and the feds for lax competition enforcement. In turn, Ottawa will say that Ontario has the power to control prices. Thus, the time-honoured cycle of buck-passing and blame dodging will continue.

If the opposition wants to land a body blow on the government it should abandon its gas price concern and focus on gas taxes. The recent MPP gas committee (a waste of time and money if there ever was one) should have demanded that Mike Harris and Ernie Eves appear and explain why only 40% of what Ontario collects in gas taxes and associated motoring fees makes its way back into the Transportation budget Earth to Dalton McGuinty, come in Dalton: time to focus on the real problem, gas taxes!

Health Care is back with a vengeance. Instead of rolling around the province announcing more money at every turn (like they did in the spring run-up to the 99 election), the government should take a long hard look at systemic problems like demographic shifts, technological utilization and the increasing acuity of major diseases. Employing the correct blend of public and private services (like every other industrialized nation on the face of the planet) while retaining access for all income groups is the solution to our health care woes, not getting bogged down in spurious and useless ideological debates.

And finally, as your kids finish up their March break week and prepare to return to class, taxpayers should brace themselves for a spring and summer of uncertainty. The government and teachers' unions have begun another war of words over classroom sizes, teaching times and funding formulae. In the end, students will once again become the first casualties in a war of wills between the government and the unions… welcome to Spring 2000 at Queen's Park.