Prime Minister Doug Ford’s re-elected government will reconvene the Ontario legislature at its Aug. 8 session, two government sources told CBC News on Wednesday.
The atypical summer session will give Ford’s majority government a chance to set out its agenda in a throne speech on August 9 and present a budget in the following days.
One of the main government sources says the legislature will continue to be in the fall. The usual schedule calls for Queen’s Park to be paused until mid-September.
The first order of the legislature on August 8 when deputies meet in the chamber for the first time since the election will be the election of a president for the 43rd provincial parliament.
Ford has said his new government will provide essentially the same budget that Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy presented in late April. This budget was not approved because the government postponed the legislature immediately afterwards for the election campaign.
Earlier Wednesday, Ford appointed 43 of its deputies to be parliamentary assistants to cabinet ministers. The work includes a $ 16,600 surcharge on the MPP base salary of $ 116,500 annually.
Added to the 30-member cabinet last Friday, that means 73 of the 83 Progressive Conservative MPs are ministers or parliamentary assistants. The president and deputy spokesman will almost certainly be elected from the remaining 10 PC deputies.
Kathleen Wynne’s re-elected Liberal government in 2014 had 28 cabinet ministers and 29 parliamentary assistants.
The salaries of all Ontario MPs, from the opposition to the Prime Minister, have been frozen since 2008.