The Liberals have lowered the current deficit to $1.9 billion but the provincial member for Nipissing doesn’t see that as an accomplishment. In fact Vic Fedeli says the Liberals are artificially balancing the budget. Fedeli was reacting to a third quarter report the Liberals released under the Fiscal Transparency Act. The Tory finance critic says the Liberals managed to hit $1.9 billion by juggling a lot of one-time revenue streams. “They’re using the sale of Hydro One money, they also took $600-million from reserves and they got land transfer taxes mostly from Toronto that was up $500-million than they had planned because of a robust economy.” said Fedeli.
Fedeli says relying on the land transfer taxes was tenuous at best and it’s something the Financial Accountability Officer was also concerned about. “We’re not always going to have a remarkable housing boom and he (the FAO) was cautious about that and cautioned the government about that,” Fedeli said. Fedeli also said that in an earlier report, the FAO indicated Ontario is still facing a structural deficit meaning the Liberals continue to spend more money than they take in. The MPP says by using one-time resources that don’t repeat to lower and eliminate the deficit, once the money is used up, we’re back into a deficit.
But Fedeli says the FAO paints an even gloomier financial picture. “Not only will we have a deficit each year, but also for the next five years we’ll have an increasing deficit,” Fedeli says. “The FAO shows a very different picture of what I call a true picture of Ontario’s finances.” Fedeli also says the Progressive Conservatives “guilted” the Liberals into releasing the third quarter report. He says under the Fiscal Transparency Act the report is supposed to come out every year by February 15th. He says only once since 2007 have they turned in a report and adds it’s because the Tories badgered the Liberals about its release.
