Ontario´s deficit last year was $7.4B - half what Ford claimed
(The Star Books)

Ontario’s budget deficit was half of the $15 billion the Progressive Conservative government initially claimed after defeating the Liberals last year.Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy and Finance Minister Rod Phillips on Friday announced that the final deficit figure for 2018-19 was $7.4 billion.The Tory ministers said the change — down from an interim $11.7 billion figure disclosed by former treasurer Vic Fedeli who was demoted 10 weeks after his April budget — is due to higher tax revenues and lower than anticipated spending.“Our government’s strong fiscal management and smart policies mean we are overcoming the previous government’s record of waste and mismanagement,� said Bethlenfalvy.But the actual deficit could be anywhere from $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion lower because the Tories are still in discussions with Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk over how to include billions of assets in government co-sponsored pension plans.Lysyk used to account for the holdings in the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan until a dispute with the previous Liberal government in 2015.A panel of independent experts hired by the former administration and led by the chair of the Canadian Actuarial Standards Oversight Council concluded in 2017 that she was wrong.The Conservatives’ independent “financial commission of inquiry,� headed by former B.C. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell, said last year the government should only adopt Lysyk’s accounting method on a “provisional basis.�“It would seem reasonable that the government should be able to recognize a portion of an asset it jointly controls with another party,� Campbell’s report concluded.“Given the risks and uncertainties involved, they may not feel it appropriate for the government to recognize its full 50 per cent share of the surplus. By the same token, h ...