Taking notes from Harris’ playbook

After declaring fiscal crisis, expect Ford to slash spending and cut taxes

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has completed the first part of the Mike Harris trifecta: He has declared a fiscal crisis.

Now the province awaits parts two and three. Stage two will be to slash spending in order to deal with this alleged crisis.

Stage three will be to return those fiscal savings to voters in the form of tax cuts.

It’s the formula Harris used successfully after he became premier in 1995. It’s the formula Ford’s finance minister, Vic Fedeli, put into motion Thursday with his fall economic update.

The update itself is slim but to the point. It says Ontario’s finances are in a mess because of the actions of the previous Liberal government. It says Ford’s government faces a deficit this year of close of $15 billion (a number that critics say is exaggerated).

And it warns darkly that all Ontarians will have to pay the price.

“Everyone in Ontario will be required to make sacrifices,” it reads. “Without exception.”

Thursday’s update also provided an opportunity for Ford’s Progressive Conservative government to make unrelated political changes.

Key among these is the decision to eliminate the position of environmental commissioner, currently held by lawyer Dianne Saxe.

Since the post was created by Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government in 1993, environmental commissioners have upbraided Ontario governments of all political stripes.

Just last week, Saxe released a report slamming successive governments for failing to deal with the water pollution problems created by municipal sewage and agricultural run-off.

Who knows what she might have said about the Ford government’s still non-existent climate change policy had she been given the chance? Now, she will no longer pose that threat.

The update also eliminates the jobs of two other independent officers who report to the legislature — the child advocate and the French-language services commissioner.

But I suspect these were done to divert attention from the real target, Saxe.

Other announcements that just couldn’t wait include scrapping rent controls for new buildings and reversing a Liberal fiscal measure aimed at well-heeled professionals who dodge taxes by incorporating themselves as small businesses.

The update also reverses a Liberal plan to levy a new surtax on the wealthy. This one is rather cleverly paired with another measure that would cut income taxes for the poor.

But the real aim of the update is to prepare the ground for cuts to come. What will those cuts be? The update says little on this, but it does give two hints.

First, the government is taking aim at those on welfare. Or, as the update puts it, the government will “present a plan to reform social assistance.”

Seniors vote.

And a good many think, not unreasonably, that after a lifetime of paying taxes they deserve a break on the drugs they now need to stay alive.

This is exactly what Harris did in 1995 when he cut social assistance to the bone. It may have been meanspirited, but it was immensely popular.

Second, the Ford government is zeroing in on the Ontario Drug Benefit program, which provides free or heavily subsidized pharmaceuticals to seniors and those on welfare.

What precisely it plans to cut back here remains unclear. The update says only that the government wants to make the program easier to understand, more consistent and more sustainable. That could mean anything — from increasing the co-payments charged most seniors to eliminating the plan for all but the very poorest.

Whatever it does, the government would be well-advised to move carefully here. Seniors vote. And a good many think, not unreasonably, that after a lifetime of paying taxes they deserve a break on the drugs they now need to stay alive.

In any case, the big spending cuts are for later.

For now, it seems, the government will moan about the perfidy of the Liberals and the dire fiscal straits in which it finds itself.