Doug Ford, fiscal wimp

During last year's Provincial election campaign, Tory leader Doug Ford warned often and loudly about the dire fiscal straits Ontario was in, thanks to the fecklessness of Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government.  Once elected, Ford's Finance Minister Vic Fedeli tabled a Fall Fiscal Update that revised the new government's "inherited" fiscal deficit massively higher, using some dubious accounting techniques, and clearly seemed to be setting the stage for a draconian austerity budget.

It's not as if the Tories were wildly exaggerating the Province's fiscal situation.  Ontario is the world's most indebted non-sovereign jurisdiction, an unwelcome encomium it inherited from California (which has almost three times the population) a couple of years back.  Moody's downgraded the Province's debt rating to Aa2 back in December, and there have been warnings that Ontario's finances are in such poor shape that they could jeopardize the Federal Government's AAA rating.

So when budget day finally rolled around last week, what did we get?  Not very much, frankly.  There are widespread reductions in spending across the board, but very few of them are particularly drastic. There are even a few new social initiatives of a distinctly progressive nature: dental care for low income seniors, a child care credit.  In addition, the day before the budget Ford promised to spend C$ 11 billion on an ambitious (if not yet fully thought-out) plan to improve public transit in Toronto. 

The net result: the oh-so-scary fiscal deficit that Ford and Fedeli warned about during campaign season will be eliminated over a full five-year period.  This means that Ontario will not return to a balanced budget -- much less start paying down that world-leading debt burden -- until after the next Provincial election.  This has not deterred the opposition parties from decrying Ford's heartlessness, but he hasn't given them very much to work with.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.  Like their Republican counterparts south of the border, today's Ontario Tories are populist rather than truly conservative.  The Republicans have abandoned all pretense of fiscal rectitude under Donald Trump; Ford and his pals haven't gone that far, but it's clear that cutting spending sounds a lot better on the hustings than it does from inside the Premier's office. 

We saw the Premier's populist instincts at work from day one of his government -- the pointless "buck-a-beer" initiative, the firing of the "six million dollar man" at the top of Hydro One, and so on. Budget season has brought more in the same vein, with a continuing heavy emphasis on alcohol that's a little surprising, given Ford's late brother Doug's struggle with the demon rum. Ontarians will soon be able to purchase booze at corner stores, and it will be legal to have US-style "tailgate parties" in parking lots before sports events. 

Treating the Province's citizens like adults may be welcome, indeed overdue, but it's not what most people were looking for when they voted Tory last June.  However, it seems that Ford has quickly figured out that if he wants a second term in office -- and he seems to love the job, or at least the attention that comes with it -- then he needs to be something of a people-pleaser.  That will work as long as the economy stays in decent shape; the job will get a lot harder if we run into some tougher times.