Doug Ford always had a mandate to invest in Ontario, he just didn’t do his job
In response to Donald Trump’s threat to impose high tariffs on Canadian products, Premier Doug Ford said he might have to call an early election to secure a mandate to protect Ontario’s economy.
That’s a bad excuse to call an early election. It’s like firefighters saying they must ring the doorbell and ask permission to put out a fire and save the people trapped inside the house.
The current government already has a mandate to invest in Ontario’s economy and people. Given the province’s stable finances, it also had the means to do so. It simply chooses to stash money away and spend it on vain populist measures.
Take the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example.
Ottawa picked up the tab for 92 per cent of emergency measures, giving provinces the fiscal room to invest in public services people needed more than ever. Instead, at the start of 2021, amid high death counts and economic turmoil, Ontario was sitting on $6.4 billion of unspent COVID emergency funds. The job was obvious. The money was there. But Ford chose not to spend it on Ontarians.
Fast forward to today, and we will see the same pattern.
The provincial government’s revenue is anticipated to rise from $205.7 billion in 2024 to $217.4 billion in 2025 — a solid 5.7 per cent increase. Spending is set to rise by 2.6 per cent, or less than half the revenue increase.
Does the current government have the mandate to expand child care provision, tackle the colossal school repair backlog, reduce emergency room waiting times and assist the more than 100,000 Torontonians relying on food banks and 80,000 Ontarians experiencing homelessness? It does.
Yet, that’s not the focus. Year in and year out, the Ontario government’s attention and dollars have been poured into populist and nonsense measures nobody asked for.
It’s a long list. Let’s look only at the three most recent ones.
