Province’s chief accountant resigned over deficit figure

The Ontario government’s chief accountant resigned earlier this fall because she refused to sign off on Finance Minister Vic Fedeli’s inflated $15 billion deficit, the Star has learned.

Cindy Veinot, the provincial controller, quit in September because she “did not agree with accounting decisions made by the current government.”

“I believe that the consolidated financial statements of the province of Ontario as issued … materially overstate the deficit of the province for the year,” she said in a submission to the legislative “transparency” committee examining the province’s books.

Veinot, a civil servant, has declined to speak publicly, but the Star obtained her 12-page summary that was sent to the standing committee on Tuesday.

That committee, which is dominated by Progressive Conservative MPPs, has repeatedly blocked efforts by NDP MPPs on the panel to call Veinot as a witness.

Tory sources, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations, admit there has been concern over what Veinot might say under oath.

Her searing unsolicited report to the committee appears to underscore their caution. The controversy centres mostly around whether $11 billion of government money in the co-sponsored Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan can be counted as a government asset on the books.

Veinot, a leading expert on pension accounting who finished first among 63,000 candidates in the 1998 certified public accountants exam in the U.S., contends the holdings are an asset.

Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk — and her predecessors — used to count them as such. However, Lysyk changed her tune in 2015 and no longer does.

In contrast to the previous Liberal government, the new Progressive Conservative administration sided with the auditor general over the provincial controller.

That decision has ballooned the deficit by about $5 billion so it now sits at $14.5 billion.

“At this point, we consider it resolved. We’re very happy with the accounting decisions,” Lysyk said Wednesday after tabling her annual report to the legislature.

Still, tensions between the two highranking number crunchers linger.