Premier Doug Ford maintains Ontario has a $15 billion provincial deficit and darkly warns that his Progressive Conservatives inherited a fiscal mess from the previous Liberal government.But a closer look at the books suggests the shortfall should be significantly lower when Finance Minister Vic Fedeli releases the fall economic statement next month.Under questioning about the Tories’ accounting on Tuesday from interim Liberal leader John Fraser, Ford blew a gasket.“It pretty rich that this member was part of the $15-billion deficit that has been put on the backs of businesses and put on the backs of the people here in Ontario,” the premier thundered.“The member from Ottawa South was personally responsible for destroying the financial books of this province. He destroyed 300,000 families that lost their jobs under the Liberal government,” he said.According to Statistics Canada, Ontario unemployment hovers at the lowest rate it’s been in a generation and employment has increased by 1.1 per cent, or 79,000 jobs, since August 2017.“There was no oversight for 15 years for the taxpayers. We have an inquiry going on. We have a select committee going on to find out who got rich off … the Liberal government,” added Ford.In fact, there is considerable scrutiny of the province’s books — both the auditor general and the financial accountability office released pre-election reports prior to the June 7 vote.Former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne’s government forecast a $6.7 billion deficit for 2018-19.Wynne’s tally included $5.7 billion in new Liberal election spending announced in the March 28 budget.While the Tories are not bound by those promises — and have already begun cancelling them, including $307.3 million for new satellite university campuses in Brampton, Markham, and Milton — they include them in their $15-billion deficit figure.Further complicating matters, Auditor General Bon ...
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