It's better to be honest than to say -- as Doug Ford has -- that you "believe in honest conversations." Martin Regg Cohn writes:
A year ago, Ford told Ontarians he wanted to “follow the money” —code for criminality. An accounting dispute between the previous Liberal government and the auditor general amounted to “the biggest government scandal in a generation,” he claimed.
Ford pointed an accusing finger at his predecessor, Kathleen Wynne: “If you lie on your taxes … there are consequences.”
Her crime? In her last budget, for the 2018-19 fiscal year, Wynne projected a budget deficit of $6.7 billion.
Impossible, cried Ford. After taking power, he assembled an outside panel that alleged the deficit had somehow soared to an outsized $15 billion — more than double Wynne’s figure.
But, after a year, Ford's numbers have changed -- radically:
This month, Ford’s Tories announced the final numbers for that disputed fiscal year. Let us try to uncover the coverup — in all honesty.
Turns out the 2018-19 deficit was $7.4 billion after all. Not the $15 billion that Ford alleged (by mischievously counting a number of Liberal campaign promises that never came to pass).
Compare that final figure to the original $6.7 billion estimate from Wynne’s government in their original budget. That’s a difference of roughly 10 per cent, versus Ford’s post-election allegation that overstated the deficit by 100 per cent.
Ford has been cutting programs ever since he came to office -- because, he said, that $15 billion deficit was unsustainable. However,
no one will be surprised when Ford’s government quietly restates the deficit numbers downwards yet again. Expect the final — truly final — deficit figure to align even more closely with the original projections from that disputed Liberal budget, the one that Ford claimed in so many words was criminally corrupt.
Political Honesty? Where should we look for it?
Image: St. Catherines Standard
6 comments:
No worries, Owen. There's still plenty of time for Ford to make his $15b deficit figure come true.
Cap
I've never heard the word "dishonestly" described as "mischievously" before. Nothing about Doug Ford is mischievous -- he has shown himself to be very dishonest many times.
This is a typical "right wing" stunt that Reform/Conservative politicians pull on a regular basis. When Gordo Campbell rode into Victoria on his b.s. train, he made similar complaints about the NDP who had just been defeated. He paid some high-priced friendly accounting firm to do an "audit" in an attempt to further stain the NDP as big spenders.
At the end of the day, this high paid firm came up with the same figures the NDP showed in their books. And the local pro-Con media's response? Why jest put that li'l old note on the second last page of our newspaper, Festus! (Most folks who buy this rag generally only read the Sports, first 2 pages of any edition and maybe the editorial page - in that order!
Quite possibly, Cap. Math is not his claim to fame.
And that's why these folks continue to get away with this con, Lulymay.
Hey, if a former drug dealer (alleged) can lose $42 million as Ontario's monopoly seller of legal weed, doubling the provincial deficit shouldn't be much of a stretch!
Cap
Strange, isn't it Cap, that politicians who claim to be good businessmen have difficulty with math?
Post a Comment