The American humorist Mark Twain, attributing the original quotation to British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, famously said, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

To that, we should add a fourth — previous Liberal estimates of government spending compared to what was in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget last week.

In a speech to the Toronto Association for Business and Economics on Thursday, C.D. Howe Institute President and CEO William Robson described the Liberal record as “fiscal fantasies” focusing on “four incredible projections.”

In each one — expenses, deficits, debt burden and liabilities — Robson said, previous financial forecasts by the Liberal government were “wildly off the mark”.

The Liberal government’s fall economic statement in

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