EDITORIAL: Ford spending like Carney, Wynne, Rae

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Given that Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s government was already spending money at a faster rate than the previous Liberal government of Ontario, it’s no surprise deficit spending is predicted to skyrocket in his 2025 budget released Thursday. 

But even so, his government’s estimate of a $14.6-billion deficit for this fiscal year, almost 10 times higher than its projection of a $1.5-billion deficit in its fall economic statement in October 2024, and $4.6 billion in its previous budget in March 2024, is startling. 

This level of deficit spending is mindful of Ontario’s one and only NDP government from 1990-95 where, in his first budget, then-premier Bob Rae hiked the deficit to a then-record $9 billion from a $700-million deficit it had inherited from the previous Liberal government — or $2.5 billion using the NDP’s figure — saying it was proud to be fighting a looming recession rather than the deficit. 

That turned into an economic disaster from which the province never fully recovered, with the NDP compelled to slash spending in subsequent years, while still recording huge deficits, before being booted from office in 1995. 

Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy on Thursday employed similar rhetoric to the Rae government about protecting workers and businesses from the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war. 

That would have been more convincing if Ford hadn’t been spending money faster than the previous Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne, as documented by the fiscally conservative Fraser Institute, long before Trump started his second term as president in January 2025. 

Indeed, when Ford was first elected in 2018, he repeatedly condemned the Wynne government for fiscal irresponsibility. 

Ford is following the same path as Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, justifying massive hikes in deficit spending by promising it will be used to build public infrastructure and boosting the economy in the face of the recession threat posed by Trump. 

The Ford government predicts it will lower the provincial deficit from $14.6 billion this year to $7.8 billion next year and return to a balanced budget in 2027-28. 

The problem is that once a government embarks on a path of big deficits, it tends to stay there, as demonstrated by the federal Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.