Ford’s prudent budget vs Carney’s spending: Ontario's fiscal showdown

Queen’s Park can offer Ottawa a lesson when it comes to presenting a sound fiscal plan to tackle budgetary challenges. Premier Doug Ford has long been criticized for Ontario’s growing debt burden and his government’s overall lack of balanced budgets. But last week, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy presented a fall economic update that is, under the surface, actually quite prudent. It was a sharp contrast with the runaway spending budget tabled by federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne just days earlier. At first glance, a provincial fiscal update with a $13.5-billion deficit doesn’t exactly look prudent. But once you do a deeper dive into the numbers, Bethlenfalvy’s spending restraint becomes evident. Consider overall program spending. Total program spending