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1. Alberta racking up debt much faster than Ontario did

   Recently, several high-profile exchanges on social media and news stories have compared the economic pain in Alberta to what was experienced in Ontario during and after the 2008/09 financial crisis.  We won’t get into addressing the ...

2. Ontario’s ‘mini-budget’ makes little progress on deficit

   Today, Finance Minister Vic Fedeli tabled Ontario’s Fall Economic Statement. Given Ontario’s difficult fiscal situation (a large budget deficit and mountain of public debt), and signals that the update would be a “mini-budget’ with ...

3. Successive Ontario governments increased net debt from $139 billion to $338 billion

   The Ford government today released its fall economic and fiscal update, which includes taxation and spending changes, with Finance Minister Vic Fedeli noting that the "fiscal hole is deep.” However, perhaps the most telling ...

4. Ontario has a $15 billion deficit—not the $6.7 billion claimed by the previous government

   The Ontario government’s review of provincial finances is finally out, and the picture is even grimmer than what the auditor general and the Financial Accountability Office have presented. The key findings confirm that Ontario since 1990 ...

5. Actually, including capital spending, Ontario’s deficit is more than $32 billion

   Ontario’s 2018 provincial budget saw total operating expense reach $158.5 billion with total revenues at $152.5 billion, for a deficit of just over $6 billion. But there has been some debate over government accounting methods and the ...

6. Wishful Thinking: An Analysis of Ontario’s Timeline for Shrinking Its Debt Burden

   Since 2007/08, Ontario’s level of public debt has approximately doubled. As a result, the provincial debt-to-GDP ratio has climbed to historically high levels in recent years. In its 2017 budget, Premier Wynne’s government presented a timeline for ...

7. Alberta’s run of deficits tower over Ontario’s worst

   Appeared in the Financial Post, May 30, 2017 Over the past decade, Ontario emerged as the poster child for poor fiscal management in Canada, due largely to the province’s deep run of deficits. However, thanks to a decade of rapid spending growth and ...

8. Race to the Bottom: Comparing the Recent Deficits of Alberta and Ontario

   Alberta’s public finances are deteriorating rapidly, with the provincial government set to run a cumulative budget deficit of $27.6 billion over the three-year period from 2015/16 to 2017/18. Until recently, by far the largest deficits of any ...

9. Interest payments on government debt: Ontario’s fastest growing expense

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, February 3, 2016 It’s no secret that Ontario’s provincial government finances are a mess. The province will run its eighth consecutive budget deficit in 2015/16. This time, the shortfall is projected at $7.5 billion. Largely ...