GOLDSTEIN: Ford overspends Wynne government it condemned for overspending, report says

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government will outspend Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s previous government this year, even when accounting for inflation and COVID-19-related spending, new research from the Fraser Institute.

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“When in opposition, Progressive Conservatives frequently criticized Liberal government spending, but now the Ford government plans to spend more than the Wynne government ever did,” said Ben Eisen, of the Fraser Institute, co-author of the report. The Ford government plans to spend more than the Wynne governmentby the fiscally conservative think tank.

In fact, even before the pandemic hit, the Ford government was emulating the Wynne government’s spendthrift policies rather than reforming them, starting with its first budget in 2019.

The study indicates that Ford Budget 2022-23, released ahead of the June provincial election and which the government intends to pass when Parliament resumes on Monday, “will increase program spending per person by 2.9% to $11,783, or $282 more than the Wynne government spent in its last year in office.” (These figures are adjusted for inflation and exclude expenses related to COVID-19.)

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As a result, the Ford government is planning bigger budget deficits than it inherited from the Wynne government – ​​which it condemned for fiscal irresponsibility when the PCs were the official opposition and the Liberals were in power.

The Fraser Institute study indicates that under Ford, the province’s per capita net debt will fall from $27,889 in 2021-22 to $28,930 in 2024-25, essentially mirroring the pace of debt accumulation by the Wynne government. .

In the 2018 election that brought them to power, Ford and PCs promised to cut spending, balance the budget and reduce the province’s debt burden.

“Ontario doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem,” the Progressive Conservatives said in their election platform. “Efficiencies exist across government, whether it’s how different agencies and departments buy goods or how they deliver services. »

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In the 2018 election, the Progressive Conservatives accused the Liberals of making Ontario the biggest subnational borrower in the world and spending $40 million a day more than their income.

They said debt interest payments, at $13.3 billion a year, were the government’s largest spending after health care, education and social services.

Despite this campaign rhetoric, the Fraser Institute study indicates that “many areas of fiscal policy have been characterized by continuity rather than change since the Ford government came to power…We find that the Ford government has generally maintained higher, inflation-adjusted per capita spending during his first term than under Premier Wynne.

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“Budget 2022 suggests that the Ford government plans to increase spending further in its second term. Largely because of this spending trajectory, Budget 2022 projects Ontario will continue to run deficits of operation in the years to come” without any plan to balance the budget.

“If the Ford government is to deliver on its original promise to make Ontario’s finances sustainable, it will have to change course in its second term. The 2022 budget, however, suggests the government foresees no such change – that continuity rather than change is likely to characterize provincial fiscal policy for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, all the political pressure on the Ford government today, which has been accused of underspending by the NDP and the Liberals, resulting in the closure of emergency rooms, intensive care units and hospital beds , will be to spend more money, not less, in the future. .