Ontario’s books suggest deficit should be considerably lower than Tories’ $15B figure

Thestar.com
October 31, 2018
Robert Benzie

Premier Doug Ford maintains Ontario has a $15 billion provincial deficit and darkly warns that his Progressive Conservatives inherited a fiscal mess from the previous Liberal government.

But a closer look at the books suggests the shortfall should be significantly lower when Finance Minister Vic Fedeli releases the fall economic statement next month.

Premier Doug Ford’s deficit amount is at odds with the Liberal government’s number which was different from the amount calculated by Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk.

Under questioning about the Tories’ accounting on Tuesday from interim Liberal leader John Fraser, Ford blew a gasket.

“It pretty rich that this member was part of the $15-billion deficit that has been put on the backs of businesses and put on the backs of the people here in Ontario,” the premier thundered.

“The member from Ottawa South was personally responsible for destroying the financial books of this province. He destroyed 300,000 families that lost their jobs under the Liberal government,” he said.

According to Statistics Canada, Ontario unemployment hovers at the lowest rate it’s been in a generation and employment has increased by 1.1 per cent, or 79,000 jobs, since August 2017.

“There was no oversight for 15 years for the taxpayers. We have an inquiry going on. We have a select committee going on to find out who got rich off … the Liberal government,” added Ford.

In fact, there is considerable scrutiny of the province’s books -- both the auditor general and the financial accountability office released pre-election reports prior to the June 7 vote.

Former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne’s government forecast a $6.7 billion deficit for 2018-19.

Wynne’s tally included $5.7 billion in new Liberal election spending announced in the March 28 budget.

While the Tories are not bound by those promises -- and have already begun cancelling them, including $307.3 million for new satellite university campuses in Brampton, Markham, and Milton -- they include them in their $15-billion deficit figure.

Further complicating matters, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, who was involved in an accounting dispute with the previous Liberal regime, said this year’s shortfall is $11.7 billion.

That’s $5 billion higher than the Liberal deficit -- and $3.3 billion lower than the Tories’ $15 billion tally.

The disagreement stems from whether $11 billion of the government’s share of co-sponsored Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan can be counted toward the bottom line.

Even though Lysyk and her predecessors booked the holdings as an asset starting in 2002, she changed her mind two years ago.

A panel of independent experts hired by the previous government and led by the chair of the Canadian Actuarial Standards Oversight Council concluded last year she was wrong.

Even Ford’s independent “financial commission of inquiry,” headed by former B.C. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell, said the government should only adopt Lysyk’s accounting method on a “provisional basis” while negotiating with her.

“It would seem reasonable that the government should be able to recognize a portion of an asset it jointly controls with another party,” Campbell’s report concluded.

“Given the risks and uncertainties involved, they may not feel it appropriate for the government to recognize its full 50 per cent share of the surplus. By the same token, however, it seems unlikely they would conclude the value to be zero.”

Fraser noted the Tories are “cutting the programs and not reflecting that in the public accounts.”

“They’re also not reflecting that they’re going to negotiate the pension treatment in the public accounts.”

Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy and the PC MPP for Pickering -- Uxbridge, said regardless of the accounting treatment there are challenges ahead for the new government as it strives to “repair the damage to both the public finances and the public trust caused by Liberal mismanagement.”

“We will be cutting red tape, we will be cutting inefficiencies and we will be cutting the deficit,” said Bethlenfalvy.