Though Ontario Premier Doug Ford ran on the promise of balancing the provincial budget in 2018, his government has spent more annually than any other provincial government in Ontario’s history, barring one, according to a new study.
The Fraser Institute released a bulletin reporting that the Ford government oversaw two of the three highest per-person spending years in the province’s history. Even after excluding one-time COVID-related expenditures, his government recorded the second and third-highest spending years.
“The highest single year of per-person spending between 1965 to 2022 was under Premier Dalton McGuinty in 2010, at $12,305. The next two highest years were under Premier Doug Ford in 2020 at $12,227 and $12,081 in 2021,” the report said.
After adjusting for inflation, the study reviewed Ontario’s annual per-person program spending since 1965. They found that the Ford government’s approach to spending growth has been nearly identical to that of his predecessor, Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne.
“Since day one, when Doug Ford became Premier of Ontario, he has been a very free-spending Premier,” Jay Goldberg, the Ontario director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told True North in an interview. “He said that the Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty, and then Kathleen Wynne, had spent far too much money and that he would rein that in and get the budget under control. Instead, we’ve seen very big spending increases virtually every year over the past six years.”
Goldberg said Ford’s spending has led the province into $86 billion in new debt and some of the highest years of spending in the province’s history, with no clear sign of restraint in the future.
“It’s been a big disappointment overall, and I think Ontarians are concerned that this government was elected with a mandate to rein in spending and instead has gone full steam ahead,” he added.
Goldberg thinks the government should focus on making cuts to its tax-funded corporate handout programs, to lower its program spending and balance the books.
According to the Montreal Economic Institute, the Ford government spends about $9.1 billion yearly on corporate welfare.
“They can virtually balance the budget overnight if they cut out the money that’s being given from taxpayers’ wallets and into the pockets of big corporations,” Goldberg said. “Over the past year, Ford has announced money for big auto giants like the Ford Motor Company, Honda, Stellantis and other auto companies.”
Besides Ford’s corporate handouts to the auto sector and other industries, Goldberg questioned the Ford government’s infrastructure spending, such as the Crosstown LRT and other transit expenditures.
“We’ve seen examples of other subway expansions in Toronto that have gone billions and billions of dollars over budget. That’s all deeply concerning,” he said. “(Ford’s government) tried to blame it on its inflation. But we all know that inflation doesn’t cause a doubling or tripling of the cost of certain projects.”
He also thinks that compensation for government employees should be brought “back in line with reality and what folks are paid in the private sector” if the Progressive Conservative government wants to begin conserving taxpayers’ money.
“We’re in a situation right now where folks that work for the government make about 9% more than those who are working in the private sector, and they get all these benefits that the folks in the private sector who pay the bills don’t,” Goldberg said. “If you were to bring the wages that are being given to government employees in line with what a comparable worker would get in the private sector, you could shoot billions of dollars off of the budget this year.”
Doug Ford’s office did not respond to True North’s requests for comment before the given deadline.