Overpromise and underdeliver.
That’s been the reality of budgeting in Ontario during the Ford years.
As a new Fraser Institute study points out, the Ford government has repeatedly set targets for balancing the province’s operating budget in recent years, only to blow through spending targets and post significant deficits.
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy pledged the budget would be balanced in 2024 with a $2.2-billion surplus. Instead, the province ran a jaw-dropping $8.8-billion deficit.
Then he promised the budget would be balanced in 2026.
That plan fell through a year before 2026 even arrived. Now Bethlenfalvy’s targeted balanced budget date is 2027.
After delaying a projected balanced budget date for not one, not two, but three years, can Ontarians have any faith that Queen’s Park will finally get its act together?
This is a far cry from what Premier Doug Ford campaigned on in 2018. After castigating the Liberals for running large deficits for several years in a row, Ford promised to end the party with taxpayers’ money.
That never happened.
Instead, the Ford government itself is projecting a hefty $12.6-billion deficit in the current fiscal year, 2025-26, which will mark the 17th operating budget deficit in the past 18 years.
While Bethlenfalvy likes to brag that Ontario is “in the best fiscal shape that this province has been” in for the better part of two decades, the reality is that Ontario taxpayers now see more of their tax dollars go toward paying debt interest than funding post-secondary education.
And given how many times the Ford government has pushed back its balanced budget target, it’s worth asking whether anything the provincial government says on the financial front has any credibility at all.
Even if by some miracle the Ford government does manage to exercise enough fiscal restraint to get the budget balanced by 2027, it’s important to note just how much damage has been done to Ontario’s bottom line under the McGuinty, Wynne, and, yes, the Ford years.
Ontario’s net debt has increased from just over $150 billion in 2008-09 to nearly $450 billion in 2024-25. And the Ford government plans to push that number higher still, to above $500 billion, before supposedly getting to balance in 2027.
Even if the budget does get balanced in 2027, there’s no denying the damage done to Ontario’s bottom line. Ontario’s fiscal position has deteriorated significantly since the Great Recession, and any hope of undoing some of that damage would require years of surpluses and a genuine commitment to paying down debt.
A final thing the Fraser Institute study points out is just how important it is to remember that when governments talk about balancing the budget, they’re talking about the operating budget.
Bethlenfalvy still expects the provincial debt to rise even after the planned 2027 balanced budget target date. That’s because the province still intends to borrow billions of dollars a year to finance capital projects.
The Ford government’s own projections show that even when it plans to balance the operating budget in 2027, debt is expected to rise by $14.7 billion due to capital spending.
So, in reality, the Ford government’s balanced budget plans really aren’t balanced budget plans at all. Instead, the province plans to celebrate the fact that it’s covering its day-to-day expenses, all the while racking up billions in new debt.
Households cannot do this. A household can’t just say day-to-day expenses are being covered, but plan to borrow heavily for upgrades around the house and claim that its finances are sustainable.
Governments shouldn’t either. Or, at a bare minimum, capital borrowing ought to be factored into the equation when governments make their final calculations regarding budget balance.
Despite its bragging, the Ford government’s record on budgeting is poor at best. It’s time for Ford and Bethlenfalvy to buckle down, cut spending, balance the books, and get Ontario’s debt numbers going down, not up.
Jay Goldberg is the Canadian Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Center. He previously served as the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a policy fellow at the Munk School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
