Should Ontarians be concerned about the province’s fiscal situation?
Our latest report provides a straightforward account of Ontario’s current fiscal situation. It finds that while Ontario’s fiscal situation is better than that of many other countries facing fiscal problems, the province is likely to reach a state of crisis unless it cuts spending and changes the ways it does business.
Ontario’s history of spending is unsustainable. In only seven of the past 25 years has the government balanced its books or achieved a surplus. As a result, the province has been digging itself deeper and deeper into the red. By 2016-17, interest payments to service the provincial debt are projected to consume ten cents of every dollar the government spends.
A tipping point may be closer than Ontarians think. With a slower growth future projected for the province, combined with the growing demands of a rapidly aging population, the need to deal with the fiscal situation now becomes all the more urgent.
Read How Bad Is It? What Do We Do About It? to learn more about Ontario’s fiscal situation and the steps the government can take to return itself to a path of fiscal sustainability.
