Unusual? Yes. Cruel? No

IComment

s Ontario Premier Doug Ford really Dalton McGuinty in disguise, or is he an evil man who hates children?

In response to Ford’s first budget, some conservative commentators have expressed surprise and disappointment that Ford did not bring in an immediate and dramatic reduction in the deficit, instead promising record spending. Those on the left argued that the budget was a broad-based attack on children and the most vulnerable, driven by Ford’s personal cruelty.

Ford had to be happy. He and his team are trying to show that the PCS are moderate and responsible. Nothing accomplishes that quite like being attacked from both the left and the right.

It was actually a prominent Toronto progressive columnist who compared Ford to Mcguinty during his austerity phase. It wasn’t clear whether that was a compliment or an insult, but it certainly caught the spirit of those who felt Ford isn’t going far enough, fast enough.

Do they have a point? Glancing at the budget would suggest that all Ford needed to do was keep spending at the same number as the last Liberal budget. That alone would have almost entirely eliminated the deficit. How easy is that?

Well, not too easy when you look at the details. The PCS are paying a political price for adopting the accounting approach suggested repeatedly by the province’s auditor general. Doing so meant the PCS accepted a pension cost of $2.7 billion. They also included the $4 billion the government is spending to artificially lower power bills. The Liberals had buried that to keep it off the government’s main accounts.

Then there is the matter of the ever-rising payments on the provincial debt. Back in 2017-18, that was a mere $11.9 billion. This year, the debt charge will be $1.4 billion higher. In all, those three factors combined to increase provincial spending by $7.7 billion, almost all of the $9.1 billion increase in spending between the last full Liberal year and the first full Ford year.

Despite claims of deep cuts to health care and education from the mean Ford, spending in both areas is going up. Nevertheless, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and her supporters count any increase of less than the rate of inflation as a cut.

Social service spending looks like more of a problem. It is expected to go down by $1 billion over three years, but nearly three-quarters of that is attributed to demanding better results from private sector agencies that help people find work, and a strong push to get more people off welfare and into jobs. High spending on welfare is not the mark of a successful society.

Finally, there is the cruelty. The PCS are so heartless that they have exempted minimum wage workers from provincial income tax, created a new child-care tax credit and provided a new dental coverage plan for low-income seniors. Autism spending remains a problem, but the PCS intend to spend twice as much as the Liberals did.

The PCS say it will take five years to eliminate the deficit, which would leave them $3.5 billion in the hole going into the next election. That number is intended to keep expectations low, but it’s reasonable to predict that the Ford government will eliminate the deficit in four years.

While their first budget includes the cost of many of the PCS’ election promises, there are still some expensive ones ahead, particularly lowering income taxes for the middle class and further reducing gasoline taxes. Together, they will cost nearly $3 billion a year. Those costs are already factored into the government’s revenue projections.

Not all the PCS’ plans for efficiency will go as expected, but at least they are trying to deliver service more effectively rather than just spending less to do things the same way. There is nothing cruel about that, but it is unusual.