Ford government reaches a new devious low

intention was to avoid showing a deficit in the province’s budgets and consolidated financial statements for 2017/18 to 2019/20, and to likewise show no increase in the provincial net debt.”

She reported that in October last year, eight months before the election.

Pension accounting was an even longer-running feud between Liberal Queen’s Park and Lysyk’s office, beginning in June 2016 and going public in October that year when she sent a formal letter of protest to the government, which then had to release unaudited financial statements. “It’s apparent they’re trying to usurp the auditor general,” the Progressive Conservative finance critic complained. Fedeli was the chap’s name.

In her pre-election review of provincial finances, released in April, Lysyk pegged the real expense impact of the Rube Goldberg Hydro Plan at $2.4 billion and the pension jiggery-pokery at $2.6 billion. Campbell’s commission used the same numbers. There is almost literally no newshere.

In a hilarious joint statement on Friday, interim Liberal leader John Fraser and finance critic Mitzie Hunter accused the premier of “pretending to be shocked by something he has known for a long time” — which is true, but also a bit like the handcuffed criminal asking the cops what took them so long to nab him.

Meanwhile, the size and obviousness of the deception the government deplores only underlines the absurdity of the Tories having incorporated it in their election campaign. Patrick Brown’s People’s Guarantee platform used the Liberal books as its baseline; Doug Ford’s brief online quasiplatform borrowed heavily from it, promising billions upon billions in new spending while forsaking carbon tax revenues. It certainly mentioned nothing along the lines of what Fedeli warned Friday: “The task ahead is not an easy one. The hole is deep and it will require everyone to make sacrifices without exception.”

Ford is too unpredictable to say for sure what’s coming down the pike, but if it’s bigtime spending cuts, no one will be surprised. This government can claim no mandate from its election win to do anything of the kind, and its “hidden deficit” routine might be the sorriest one yet — but neither a Mike Harrisstyle slash-and-burn mandate nor a more convincingly stunned finance minister would dampen the protests we are sure to see. Nor will it help to observe that $15 billion isn’t necessarily all that daunting a figure, considering Kathleen Wynne’s government spent $16 billion less just two years ago.

Having just won an election, it seems their government will now set about doing something very different than it promised. Ontarians are girding again for a pantomime war of civilizations. It’s nice to have some continuity in these troubled times, however dreary it might be.