TORONTO, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on Finance Minister Sousa and Premier Wynne to come clean about their future fiscal projections. The fall economic statement, read by Minister Sousa in Queen’s Park this afternoon, perpetuated the claim that the Wynne government would balance the budget by 2017.
“Minister Sousa is living in a fiscal fantasyland if he thinks he will balance the budget by 2017. His numbers for future years don’t add up,” said CTF Ontario Director, Christine Van Geyn. “Just because the Minister shows numbers to back up his claim doesn’t mean we should believe those numbers.”
The fall fiscal update claims revenues will grow 4.5 per cent over three years, up from the already overly optimistic 4.3 percent growth projected in the April budget. For perspective, revenue growth over the last three years has been 2.6 per cent. Even including revenue from the sale of Hydro One does not account for this anticipated growth.
The fiscal update also includes projected program spending growth at a rate of 0.9 per cent per year over the next three years. This spending growth is up from the 0.3 per cent growth originally projected in the April budget.
“The spending projections in this fiscal update are laughable,” said Van Geyn. “Over the past eight years, this government has caused program spending to grow at an explosive 4.1 per cent per year. They have little track record for cutting spending, and for them to tell the public they will control growth in the education budget is a farce. How will they afford secret million dollar teacher’s union payouts if they freeze the education budget in an election year?”
