While condemning Kathleen Wynne, the former Ontario premier, and the Liberals for years of reckless spending, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives are doing the same thing, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
“Despite promises to be more fiscally prudent than its predecessor, the Ford government has essentially continued the spending trends of the Wynne government that came before it,” study co-author Ben Eisen says in the report, Ontario Premiers and and Provincial Government Spending, 2024.
“It’s important for Ontario taxpayers to understand the true fiscal record of their governments in order to better assess whether they’re getting good value for money.”
The report by the fiscally conservative think tank finds that the Ford government has recorded the second- and third-highest levels of per-person program spending by any Ontario government since 1965.
All of the numbers are adjusted for inflation and population growth and exclude interest payments on debt so that the findings are consistent over time.
The highest level of per-person spending occurred during the Dalton McGuinty Liberal government in 2010 at $12,305.
The second- and third-highest were under Ford’s government during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 at $12,227 and in 2021 at $12,081.
But even excluding expenditures related to the pandemic, the study finds, the Ford government still recorded the second- and third-highest years of per person provincial spending since 1965 at $11,294 in 2018 and $11,310 in 2021.
Ford’s two highest years of per person program spending also surpassed Wynne’s highest year of $11,101 in 2017.
“Under Premier Wynne, spending increased from $10,901 to $11,101,” the study notes.
“The Ford government has essentially carried on (this) approach … Although spending spiked during the pandemic, it has subsequently gradually returned to near pre-pandemic levels. Per-person spending increased from $11,101 in the final fiscal year of the Wynne government (2018) to $11,163 in 2022,” under the Ford government.
The average annual growth rates of per person spending by the Wynne and Ford governments are almost identical at 0.3% for Ford and 0.4% for the Wynne government, according to the study.
None of this is surprising given the fiscal path Ford has laid out for Ontario since coming to power in 2018.
He’s not a fiscal conservative in the mould of former Ontario Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris who actually reduced program spending per person by an average of 1% annually.
Ford’s a populist but he’s not an ideologue as he’s been demonstrating ever since his government delivered its first Ontario budget in 2019, which was essentially “Liberal lite”.
For example, when Ford and the Progressive Conservatives defeated Wynne and the Liberals in 2018, Ontario’s net debt stood at about $337 billion, which the PCs complained at the time had saddled Ontario taxpayers with the largest sub-sovereign (non-national) debt in the world.
Today, after six years under Ford and the PCs, Ontario’s net debt is estimated at $439 billion this year on its way to $459 billion in 2025 and $474 billion in 2026.
While it’s fair to criticize Ford for doing a flip-flop on containing government spending, it also points out the silliness of the opposition parties portraying him as a slash and burn artist when it comes to public spending.
Ford’s opponents may not like how his government spends our money, but in terms of the amount it spends, he’s essentially spending the way the Wynne Liberals would have if they were still in power.