The McGuinty government went on a decade-long spending spree. His team of reckless spendthrifts added over $110 billion to the provincial debt in only nine years, thanks to pet projects like the Green Energy Act, fraud and corruption in arms-length government agencies like ORNGE and eHealth, putting politics ahead of taxpayers when canceling gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga, and expensive union contracts. The latter explains why government employee compensation amounts for about half the money spent by Queen’s Park.

McGuinty’s team set Ontario on a path of big government waste, perpetual deficits, chronic over-spending, and the most irresponsible governance Ontario has ever experienced.

McGuinty may be gone, but his legacy lives on.

New premier, Kathleen Wynne, continues on the same path. She tabled Ontario’s sixth consecutive deficit this May, adding another $11.73 billion to our mounting public debt.

Ontario’s debt grows by an astonishing $372 per second. That works out to $22,342 per minute – or about the cost of a down payment on a starter home in Ontario. Our province’s debt grows by $1.34 million every hour, and $32.2 million per day.

In the time it takes to read this article, Ontario’s debt will have increased by around $100,000!

Debt carries consequences. Paying the annual interest on this debt is the fastest growing expenditure in government, and at a cost of $10.6 billion per year, it is the third largest expense in government. That’s right, Ontario taxpayers pay more in interest on the debt than for post-secondary education, children’s services, road and highway spending, and most other government programs. 

This mountain of debt will eventually be passed on to the next generation of taxpayers. Our children and grandchildren will be forced to pay for our big government and big waste. They will pay higher taxes and live with fewer services, thanks to our choices.

This is irresponsible. It is unfair. It is a shameful way to run a province and fundamentally wrong to pass on the bill for our debt.

Currently, every man, woman, and child in Ontario are on the hook for over $19,000 in provincial debt. Add that to the federal debt and that number doubles. Forget about paying for university or buying a home, young Ontario citizens are already mortgaged by their governments with public debt.

Premier Wynne now carries the same big government torch handed down by Dalton McGuinty. In her first budget, she increased spending by $3.6 billion – a 2.9 per cent increase in a year where the GDP will grow by only 1.5 per cent. Our government is growing at twice the rate of the economy! Ontario’s debt-to-GDP ratio will inflate to 39.3 per cent – exactly where Greece’s was only a few decades ago.

It’s only a matter of time before this economic house of cards comes crumbling down.

That is why the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) launched its 2013 Ontario Debt Clock Tour. We will be traveling across the province, from Thunder Bay to St. Catharines, Cornwall to Windsor, and most communities in between, to engage the public and draw attention to the exploding debt caused by overspending.

The CTF has a plan. We are calling on Premier Wynne and Queen’sPark to balance the budget this year – by cutting wasteful and failed programs, ending corporate welfare and subsidies, and bringing government wages back in line with the rest of the province. We also are calling for a legislated debt-repayment schedule, a policy that once led Alberta to become debt-free. Our politicians have proven that they cannot be trusted to repay this debt on their own, and thus, repaying this debt must be enforced through law.

Our plan is simple, and requires no new or increased taxes.

It’s time for the Wynne government to cut up its high-interest credit cards and start exercising the same fiscal prudence that hard-working families and taxpayers across Ontario demonstrate everyday.