As Ontario’s provincial debt soars to $459 billion, taxpayer advocates are demanding the Ford government immediately halt “wasteful” spending on corporate handouts, political welfare, and government advertising.
Noah Jarvis, the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), called on Premier Doug Ford to introduce financial reforms to provincial budgets, noting Ontario’s debt has more than tripled in less than two decades.
“Back in 2006, Ontario’s government debt was just under $150 billion. Today, it is at $459 billion,” Jarvis said during a press conference in front of Ontario’s Ministry of Finance office in Toronto on Monday. “Debt per person in Ontario has gone from $12,000 to over $28,000. The reason why the Ontario government’s debt has been skyrocketing is that spending is out of control year by year. “
He said Ontario is adding $31.6 billion to its debt this year alone due to “significant overspending.”
Jarvis noted the Ford government has been borrowing billions from Bay Street to pay for its skyrocketing spending, leaving Ontarians with a $16.2 billion bill just for interest on what the province has borrowed. In 2006-07, debt interest was $8.8 billion, marking an 83.2 per cent increase in Ontario’s debt interest charge in 19 years.
“That’s just about $1000 per Ontarian, including children and the elderly. So when Ontarians are going to pay sales tax or pay their income taxes, just know that a significant portion of that money is going toward paying interest on the debts,” Jarvis said.
The CTF’s full report on the provincial debt shows that consecutive provincial governments since 2006-07 have spent more than they brought in as revenue each year, and Ford’s Progressive Conservative government is no different.
According to a Fraser Institute study released last year, Ford spent more per person annually than any other Ontario premier since at least 1965, except for Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty in 2010, when per-person annual spending reached $12,305.
Jarvis noted a recent CTF poll, which found that 75 per cent of Ontarians are “concerned” about the province’s compounding debt interest charges.
He said the best way to bring down the provincial government’s service charges was by cutting the $11.9 billion it spends on corporate welfare each year, cutting the “millions of dollars” given to major political parties in “political welfare,” and cutting the overall size of bureaucracy.
The CTF estimates that Ontario spends around $13 million on political welfare annually through the province’s “Per-vote subsidy,” which gives political parties a “quarterly allowance” depending on how many valid votes the party received in the last election.
“That is millions of dollars. Going to the PCs, the NDP, and the Liberals on a per-vote basis just for existing, while independent candidates and upstart parties aren’t getting the same type of funding,” he said. “So the government needs to do a thorough audit of all of their spending.”
He said cutting government waste is the way out of Ontario’s “debt problem.”
“If we stay on the same path that we have been on over the past few years, Ontario’s debt is going to surpass $500 billion. In just two years,” he said. “If they continue to blow billions of dollars on corporate welfare as a means to protect Canada against tariffs, we’re going to continue adding on to a per-person debt, continue burdening future generations with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, debt that we’re going to have to pay back.”
He called on Ontarians to petition Ford and his finance minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy, to rein in the government’s debt and balance the budget.
When asked to defend the CTF’s proposed policy to cut corporate welfare, Jarvis noted that it fails to grow the economy or create lasting jobs, and that private businesses are the ones creating jobs in Ontario.
“Quebec used to be the corporate welfare king of Confederation. They used to spend the most on corporate welfare, but since Premier Ford got elected in 2018, the provincial government has been ramping up corporate welfare spending,” Jarvis said. “During that time, we haven’t seen significant economic growth from the corporate welfare subsidies that the Ford government has claimed that it would provide.”
Jarvis said if the government were to cut corporate welfare, it could instead cut the corporate income tax rate by four points, which he argues would have a more effective and lasting effect on spurring economic growth.
He said the government is spending about $100 million every year on just government advertising, noting a recent $75 million ad to the U.S., which led to a breakdown in trade talks with the U.S. administration over tariffs.
“The government has been increasing spending by about 67 per cent on a year-by-year basis, and Ontarians don’t see that they’re getting better services for all this increased spending,” he said. “They need to cut the number of bureaucrats they’re employing, government waste, government advertising, political welfare, corporate welfare, and actually deliver a balanced budget so that they can stop the borrowing and actually begin delivering tax cuts for Ontarians.”