Ford cancelled revenue streams, increasing deficit
Ontario’s deficit soars to $9.8B: Revenue shortfalls costs coffers more than $7B, March 27
Perhaps if the Doug Ford government hadn’t been so enthusiastic about shredding longterm stable revenue streams it wouldn’t be in the deficit position it now finds itself. Since 2018 the province has lost about $1 billion a year each from the cancellation of the greenhouse gas cap and trade program, the elimination of vehicle licensing fees and reductions in the provincial gasoline tax. To this has to be added the billions in provincial revenues that are now having to be diverted to municipalities to pay for infrastructure needed to support housing, making up for the development charge revenues that were lost through Bill 23 — the Building More Homes Faster Act. Then there is the ongoing $7-billion annual diversion of revenues to artificially lower hydro rates and hide the actual costs of nuclear refurbishments. In the longer term, the costs of financing the government’s “get it done” megaprojects, many of which, like the Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass and Pickering B nuclear refurbishment, have been assessed as uneconomic, unnecessary and destructive, has to be considered as well, in a context of increased interest rates. Beyond the environmental and climate consequences of these choices, different decisions would have left the province far better positioned to make needed investments in areas like education and health care. Mark S. Winfield, Toronto
The Ford government could handily have trimmed its deficit in this latest budget by cancelling its gas tax cut. By the government’s own admission, this tax cut has diminished government revenues by $2.1 billion over the past two and a half years. Might not all that money have been more helpful providing affordable housing, supporting public transit, and fixing our overburdened healthcare system? Kenneth Oppel, Toronto
Now that he’s cut revenues through ill thought-out tax cuts, can we count on the other shoe to drop when he wants to privatize or sell off some provincial asset to make up for it? Maybe he can raise funds for Hwy. 413 by selling it as a toll road? Laila Andersen, Scarborough