The Ontario government has pledged to eliminate its budget deficit by 2017/18. However, the government’s recent record on fiscal issues casts doubt on whether it will meet this target.
ontario budget
November 18, 2015
9:30AM
November 13, 2015
2:35PM
The Ontario government has dug itself deep into debt and continues to spend more than the revenue it brings in each year.
July 18, 2015
9:00AM
Last week, Standard and Poor’s announced a downgrade to Ontario’s long-term credit rating, pointing to the province’s “very weak budgetary performance.”
April 23, 2015
6:00AM
Ontario’s 2015 budget, like those of years past, needed a concrete plan to get government finances on a sound footing. Yet again, the budget failed to deliver.
January 25, 2015
9:00AM
How governments manage their finances matters a great deal. Spend and borrow too much and the result is a spiral of increasing deficits that create ever higher debt. Then, ever-more tax dollars end up spent on debt interest—not on education, health care, administering provincial courts, or other areas in which provincial governments are involved.
November 18, 2014
10:00AM
There was an aura of complacency in Queen’s Park as the Ontario government released its update on the state of provincial finances.
July 21, 2014
6:00AM
We’ve seen this script before. Higher spending. Tax increases. Persistent deficits. Growing debt. Warnings from credit rating agencies. A government unwilling to make the tough choices to turn things around.
May 27, 2014
2:00AM
A new report on provincial debts and deficits by Moody's, the international credit rating agency, is another piercing reminder of Ontario's serious fiscal challenges.
November 9, 2013
2:00AM
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa called his updated financial plan a new direction but in truth it had a nostalgic feel. With his government facing considerable fiscal challenges including an $11.7 billion deficit and growing debt, Ontarians desperately needed a new direction. What they actually got was more of the same: increased spending and a government reluctant to deal with core problems.
May 3, 2013
2:00AM
The May 2 minority Liberal budget is a politically expedient document that likely avoids an election but unfortunately fails to tackle Ontario's looming fiscal crisis. The longer the province waits, the more difficult and painful the reforms will be when the inevitable day of reckoning arrives.