{"id":5898,"date":"2015-02-09T17:01:30","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T22:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=5898"},"modified":"2015-02-10T17:19:45","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T22:19:45","slug":"the-ontario-debt-problem-is-serious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=5898","title":{"rendered":"The Ontario debt problem is serious"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surprisingly, there are folks who don\u2019t seem to be bothered by the debt load the Ontario government has incurred. For many Ontarians, it just doesn\u2019t matter. But, here’s why it should. Simply put: Interest payments on government debt eat up revenue at the expense of other priorities.<\/p>\n

Interest payments on government debt in Canada consume a sizeable share of government revenue, leaving less money for public priorities such as schools, hospitals, highways and lower taxes. This is best explained by the Fraser Institute (an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank) – which, by the way, is sounding a siren on Ontario’s debt load.<\/p>\n

A recent Fraser Institute study showed that in Ontario, the provincial government in 2013\/14 spent $10.6 billion on interest payments, or 9.1 per cent of overall revenue, eclipsing the entire budget for the Ministry of Community and Social Services ($10.1 billion), and nearly topping the province\u2019s total infrastructure spending ($10.8 billion).<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Ontario struggles to rein in deficits and growing government debt, interest payments chew up big chunks of taxpayer money at the expense of priorities such as health care and education or potential tax cuts,\u201d said Charles Lammam, study co-author and resident scholar in economic policy at the Fraser Institute.<\/p>\n

More on this study here: Ontario burdened with debt<\/a>
\n\"Ont_poli_02\"<\/p>\n

In an earlier report<\/a>, the Institute calculated that Ontario has more debt than California – the poster child for fiscal irresponsibility.\u00a0 Here are the numbers: Despite the province\u2019s smaller size, Ontario\u2019s $267.5 billion (Cdn) outstanding government debt is higher than California\u2019s $144.8 billion (US). As a share of the economy, Ontario\u2019s bonded debt (the part of a government\u2019s debt represented by bonds) is 40.9 per cent compared to California\u2019s 7.6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Put in another way: Ontario\u2019s debt relative to the size of its economy is more than five times larger than the same measure for California. So, every Ontarian owes $20,166 (Cdn) compared to $3,844 (US) for every California resident.<\/p>\n

The Fraser Institute identifies the culprit has been the overspending of the Liberal government over the last decade. Charles Lammam and Mark Milke of the Institute write:
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How governments manage their finances matters a great deal. Spend and borrow too much and the result is a spiral of increasing deficits that create ever higher debt. Then ever-more tax dollars end up spent on debt interest \u2014 not on education, healthcare, administering provincial courts, or other areas in which provincial governments are involved.<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In a recent study examining how well Canada\u2019s premiers are managing government spending, taxes, deficits and debt, it turns out Ontario\u2019s Premier Kathleen Wynne has one of the worst records in the country. In contrast, now-departed Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale ranked above all her counterparts on as the most fiscally prudent, in relative terms…<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wynne has a poor ranking because Ontario\u2019s spending increased faster than economic growth and also more than inflation plus population growth. She also ran the largest average deficit among the premiers and increased government debt\u2026 <\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wynne, of course, is the premier of Canada\u2019s largest, most populous province; continued fiscal imprudence on that large of scale is simply reckless.<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has listed 10 Facts About the Ontario Debt – facts that should concern us all.<\/p>\n

\"Ont_poli_08\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surprisingly, there are folks who don\u2019t seem to be bothered by the debt load the Ontario government has incurred. For many Ontarians, it just doesn\u2019t matter. But, here’s why it should. Simply put: Interest payments on government debt eat up revenue at the expense of other priorities. Interest payments on government debt in Canada consume…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[52,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5898"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5903,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5898\/revisions\/5903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}