This article was originally published by the Toronto Sun on November 27, 2020.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced more lockdowns last week which will further reduce provincial taxation revenues and exacerbate Ontario’s already dire financial situation. Now, Ford must lock down unnecessary government spending to avoid digging the debt hole even deeper.

While it’s reasonable to increase spending in areas such as health care during a global pandemic, this government has increased spending in areas completely unrelated to the pandemic and economic downturn. A comparison between Ontario's budgets 2019-20 and 2020-21 shows that spending has increased in at least 14 different ministries since last year.

Fortunately, it’s not tough to find places for this government to cut the fat without jeopardizing the pandemic response or economic recovery.  

A favourite tactic of big-government apologists is to ask spending critics which entire government department or program should be cut. That’s not how saving works. There are opportunities to find savings across government departments.

For example, government employee compensation in Ontario accounted for about half of all operational spending last year and cost taxpayers over $72 billion. Ontario’s 1.3 million government employees are paid 10.3 per cent more than their counterparts working outside of government. Ontario taxpayers would save $7.4 billion by simply bringing government employee compensation back in line with reality.

That’s one way to trim spending without giving entire government programs the axe, but some programs definitely deserve to go.

Take, for example, corporate welfare (when governments give businesses taxpayers’ money). Politicians like to call it investing, but an Ontario government report analyzing these handouts from 2012-2017 confirmed the government almost never tracks whether or not it spent the money effectively. It’s wrong for the government to take money from struggling taxpayers and give it to corporations.

This government promised to end the wasteful practice of corporate welfare in its 2018 election platform, but has since handed out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to corporations and held self-congratulatory press conferences to add salt to the wound. Recent examples of corporate welfare from this government include $55 million to Maple Leaf Foods, and $295 million to the Ford Motor Company – both of which used the taxpayer handout to modernize their plants and get rid of employees.

Another head-scratcher contained in Ontario’s recently released budget was the section about the development of Ontario Place. This deteriorating wasteland has been caught up in government limbo for years, costing taxpayers millions. The province posted a record deficit of $39 billion and the provincial debt is spiralling toward $400 billion. The province needs to stop posting losses on Ontario Place and sell it.

Perhaps the scariest part of Ontario’s recent budget was the forecast of double-digit deficits for years to come. Each Ontarian’s portion of the provincial debt is already $25,000. Add in federal debt, and that number grows to $50,000. That’s $200,000 in government debt owed by a family of four.

It’s time for the Ontario government to cut the fat and find savings. Not all spending has been helpful for the economy or even related to the pandemic, and it’s not fair to force the next generation to pay for the excesses of today.