Wither, Ontario?

We have $349 Billion in debt, costing us $12 Billion a year in interest payments to service. We are one recession and a few years more of massive borrowing away from our creditors starting to dictate public policy in this province. All three of the main parties are responsible for this mess. Many issues are important in the Ontario general election; deficits and debt are the only issues that actually matter.

None of the main parties has an actual plan to avoid this looming catastrophe. They are all determined to try to buy votes by promising voters whatever they think they want to hear in order to be swayed in their direction. 

Wynne and Horwath are trying to buy votes on the expenditure side. Ford is trying to buy votes on the tax cut side. There is no real difference – they all believe that the people of this province are so small and self-interested that, instead of presenting us with a grand challenge such as becoming solvent so as to not mortgage our future, they are content to try to bribe us with our own money, borrowed from a diminishing future. For them, there is one real issue in politics - to try to target what the politicos tell them is the correct amount of cash and goodies to the correct segment of the population so as to reap the greatest electoral benefits. 

Small people have small visions and limited dreams. The leaders of these parties could stand in the middle of the desert at sundown and none of them would cast a shadow. 

Theirs is the pathetic politics of the public sycophant – “Ask what your country can do for you, so that I can promise that very thing to you, again and again!” The excuses for non-delivery have already been crafted by all three parties (e.g. “We had no idea the books were so badly out of balance!  Who knew that there could be another recession!! Unfortunately, this means a delay on the delivery of goodies.”)

Who do I vote for if I am primarily concerned about the long term financial health of Ontario? 

Wynne is publicly committed to running more deficits – a whopping $12 Billion this fiscal year according to the auditor general. 

Ford has promised to balance the budget in the last year of his mandate – like Justin Trudeau before him. We have no idea how big his deficits will be, because the PCs have not released a costed platform. How can they govern and pass budgets if they can’t even cost their platform? 

Horwath is the most credible of the three – she has a legitimate costed platform. But the NDP platform runs so close to the margin – so many things have to go right - that it is not credible. It also forecasts deficits without end - smaller than Wynne’s deficits, but deficits just the same. In five years, they would add $25 billion to the debt.

The key assumption of the NDP is this…“Economic growth is projected to increase provincial revenues by over $17 billion over the next four years.” In fact, the NDP's economic forecasts are based on those in Wynne's widely panned Budget 2018!! 

We are overdue for another recession. If we have a couple of years of declining revenues, and they try to implement their “…something for everyone except the rich” platform, we could see all sources of government borrowing dry up as Ontario becomes an unacceptable risk to creditors – or we have to pay such high rates of interest on new debt that it becomes politically and financially unacceptable to borrow more. This more commonly known as insolvency.

So, what do we do to avoid a never-ending fiscal mess in the face of these three awful choices?

I don’t know.