Thanks to Ontario’s good-news budget, good times are here again.Even if they never actually left.Remember Doug Ford’s grave warnings that we face a “carbon-tax recession” dead ahead? Recall all that scaremongering from the premier about the “job-killing” federal terror of a tax?Never mind. Changed our mind.Ford’s very own finance minister, Vic Fedeli, now admits that, far from facing the worst of times, this is the best of Tory times. Fedeli’s no-recession concession came in a budget that wasn’t merely anti-climactic but amnesiac.What about the premier’s alarmist claims of a runaway $15-billion deficit that sent shivers through Bay Street? Good news — Fedeli says with the Tories in control, it’s back down.Read more: Ontario budget 2019: Vic Fedeli unveils the Ford Tories’ first fiscal planOpinion | Thomas Walkom: On the big issues, PC budget is doomed to disappoint Winners and losers of the 2019 Ontario budgetStand down.Which raises a nagging question about the much-anticipated Progressive Conservative financial manifesto: If the premier conjures up pretend predictions, and the Finance Ministry makes up its own numbers, can we believe much of anything in the budgetary blueprint?“These are numbers you can trust,” Fedeli said with a straight face Thursday.Trust us. Every political party uses the same pre-game playbook: Scare the pants off people with dire warnings of cutbacks, then come to their rescue with a budget that’s not as bad as advertised, allowing everyone to breathe a collective sigh of relief.After that, promise the world to the people of the province. And hope they will forget it all by budget time next year, remembering only the bumper sticker stuff like legalizing tailgating, new licence plate slogans and expanded booze sales.There are no savage cuts in the first Ford-Fedeli budget, which could easily have been delivered by former premier Dalton McGuinty ...
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