The following is the text of a letter sent to the Premier this week by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Premier McGuinty,

Budget season is upon the province, and your government is to be commended for consulting with a variety of groups during this period. However, recent comments reported in the weekend press indicate that you are listening to a host of special interests and not to the vast majority of Ontario taxpayers who are fed up with your government's record of higher taxes, higher spending and higher debt.

Your comments suggest that you intend to break your promise to balance the provincial budget by the end of your first term. Mr. Premier, you have already broken your election promise to balance the budget when you took office. To now go beyond the term of your fist mandate is unacceptable. Your current four-year deficit-elimination plan will already add $12 billion to Ontario's $125 billion-dollar debt. It will cost taxpayers $4 billion in interest payments alone - for which they will receive not a single additional service, nor any type of tax relief.

Since the legislature resumed this month, you have announced that you will spend almost half a billion dollars to "upgrade" the Windsor Casino. Your Minister of Children's and Youth Services is quoted as saying "we're ready in Ontario" to create a new taxpayer-funded provincial daycare program. You have also said that your government intends to start implementing the recommendations of the Rae Review on education, which includes massive spending increases on colleges and universities.

This spending spree has got to stop. Dropping tax dollars on a casino with the province's finances in such dire shape is inexcusable. As for child care, Ontario isn't ready. It doesn't have the money and shouldn't be wasting it on a "one-size-fits-all" program that, according to a 2003 Compas poll, Ontarians don't even want. With regard to higher education, everyone agrees that it is important. But until costs are under control, the province can't afford the reforms Mr. Rae proposes. Unless you're willing to trim the budget in other areas, such as the size and cost of the public service, increased spending will simply rack up more debt for the very generation that you are purporting to help.

Unsuccessfully whining to Ottawa for "Ontario's share" of the federal surplus will not hide the fact that your government is failing to manage the province's finances. You had the opportunity to discuss any perceived fiscal imbalance at the last first ministers' meeting, but did not. When Newfoundland's premier reaped political capital from his "win", you tried to copy this feat, to distract Ontarians from your mismanagement. Last week's federal budget made it clear that Ottawa didn't buy your act - and neither will Ontario taxpayers.

We assume you do not want to leave the province with the same legacy as Mr. Rae: $66 billion in debt over five years. If that is the case, then stop spending money you don't have. Stop treating the taxpayers of Ontario like a credit card with no limit. You've broken your election promise not to run deficits, but pledged to balance the budget in your first term. Now you threaten to renege on even this weakened commitment.

It's your decision, Mr. Premier. Balance the books or sell out Ontario's future. We urge you make the responsible choice.