Promises, promises

It has been clear for some time that the outcome of the Ontario provincial election, to be held on June 2, will depend on which party's extravagant promises the voters choose to believe. Doug Ford's governing Conservatives have been unveiling populist promises on almost a weekly basis since the start of the year. The most blatant bribe: removing the annual fee for renewing your car license plate -- and not just on a going-forward basis: you also got a cheque in the mail for whatever you had paid to renew for the last couple of years.  

On Thursday Provincial Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy tabled the annual Provincial budget. Coming from a government that has stressed fiscal prudence, it's quite a shocker. The Tories are planning a major, multi-year increase in spending, with a focus on infrastructure. The capital spending program will total C$ 158.8 billion over ten years, with major spending on highways, public transit, hospitals and schools.  There will also be tax cuts targeted at seniors and low-income workers, the latter defined as individuals with an annual income below $50,000. 

Predictably, all of this is going to balloon the deficit. The shortfall for the 2021/22 fiscal year, which ended at the start of April, is estimated to have been $ 13.5 billion. Thanks to the economy's robust recovery from the worst of the pandemic, this is way lower than originally expected, and until yesterday the Province's own Financial Accountability Office was projecting a return to budget balance by FY 2023/24. So much for that: Bethlenfalvy's budget calls for a deficit of  $ 19.9 billion for the current fiscal year, falling to $12.3 billion in 2023/24 and continuing to fall gradually through mid-decade. 

Even before the government tabled its own budget, the leftish NDP had already started to unveil its own platform. It promises lower taxes for everyone earning less than $200,000 per year, which is the vast majority of Ontarians. This morning the Liberal leader, Steven DelDuca, was on the breakfast TV circuit making bad jokes and promising to remove sales tax on restaurant-prepared foods costing less than $ 20.  No doubt there will be more tasty treats in store as soon as the Liberals unveil their full platform. 

It's difficult to take any of this too seriously -- and that goes for Bethlenfalvy's budget just as much as the promises of the current opposition parties. The Provincial Legislature has now stood down to allow the election campaign to get started, so the budget is in effect nothing more than the Tories' election platform, and may well amount to nothing at all if Ford and his team are swept from office on June 2. As for the other parties' promises, those will as ever be hostage to the usual post-election wailing about how "the finances are in much worse shape than we thought, so alas we can't deliver all the goodies we promised".

Everyone is fatigued after two years of the pandemic, so it's perhaps no surprise to see the election shaping up this way. But how many of these promises see the light of day after June2 may be quite another matter.