You're going to have to tighten your belt a couple of notches, and Finance Minister Vic Fedeli says you can blame the previous Liberal government.
Fedeli says we'll all have to make sacrifices to reduce a newly revised $15-billion deficit.
In a speech to the Economic Club in Toronto yesterday, Fedeli said the province's auditor general found greater deficits than had been reported and an independent commission tasked with reviewing Ontario's finances found the extent of the shortfall.
View the findings of the Independent Financial Commission of Inquiry here.
"Where the Liberals said there would be a 600 million dollar surplus in their 2016-17 books, there actually was a 3.7 billion dollar deficit," Fedeli told BayToday in a telephone interview from his Toronto office.
"So the Liberals certainly misled the Legislature in terms of telling us one thing when the complete opposite is the truth."
The Finance Minister calls the Liberal actions "a moral calamity" of the government's obligation to tell the truth.
"The financial commission stated that the true deficit under the Liberals in 2018 would be 15 billion dollars. So this is a monumental change from what the Liberals had stated in their budget.
"It's a very sobering analysis. I've said it many many times as mayor, you can't manage what you can't measure, so for the first time in many, many, many years we actually have the true state of the finances in Ontario and as shocking and disappointing as that news is at least we now have the document that shows what our financial state is. That means we've got to look for efficiencies to be able to make sure we have the money to provide the programs that the people need. It will truly be about needs and not wants,"
Fedeli would not give a timeline for getting the province back in the black, though the Progressive Conservatives promised during the election campaign that they would return to balance the budget by the end of their mandate.
"We will return to a balanced budget on a timetable that is reasonable, modest and pragmatic — but we will return to balance in Ontario," Fedeli said.
Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said that while the commission paints a bleak picture of Ontario's finances, that should not be used to bring in sweeping austerity measures.
"Finding efficiencies on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens is wrong. And it will only lead to more costs down the road," he said in a statement.
Asked whether there would be service cuts or job losses, Fedeli said the premier had been clear about targeting only efficiencies.
With files from the Canadian Press
