No Sign of Significant Debt Reduction or Tax Relief in Ford’s Spring 2023 Budget—It’s All Spend, Spend, Spend! is a new study that details what the current Ontario government could have achieved in terms of lower taxes, surpluses and debt relief if it had maintained the spending levels of the previous Wynne government. Instead, the current government has increased spending by $9.5 billion above the average (inflation adjusted) annual spending of its predecessor, and is forecasting a $1.3 billion deficit this year.

This year, Tax Freedom Day is Monday, June 19. If you had to pay all your federal, provincial and municipal taxes up front, you would give government every dollar you earned from January 1st to Tax Freedom Day, when Canadians finally start working for themselves. In 2023, the average Canadian family (with two or more people) will pay 46.1 per cent of its annual income in taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes, health taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes, carbon taxes and more.

Global Aftermath: The Economic and Fiscal Effects of COVID in Canada and the World finds that during the pandemic, despite high levels of government spending and debt accumulation, Canada’s economy underperformed compared to most other advanced countries.