ontario budget

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The recent federal and Ontario budgets produced a plethora of headlines about how the public sector should brace for changes to its costly pension deals. The dramatic language was in part provoked by lines like this from the Ontario budget: Pension costs are one of the fastest-growing line items and “the status quo is not an option.”


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On Tuesday, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan had one of those rare opportunities of which politicians can only dream. With his province heading toward a fiscal crisis caused by mounting debt and out-of-control spending, an opposition sympathetic to dealing with the problem, a public that clearly wants his government to address the debt, and news outlets that understand the need for significant fiscal restraint, everything lined up for Duncan.


3:00AM
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If Ontarians are to believe Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, next week’s provincial budget will be “the most significant budget this government has ever delivered.” Let’s hope so. With a deficit of nearly $16 billion this year and several more expected over the coming years, Ontarians desperately need and deserve a plan to return fiscal sanity to the province.