A gaffe-prone Liberal MPP who boasted about his government’s tripling of the provincial debt, called a question about it “bull----,” and then denied the initial remark has issued an apology.

“I put my foot in it,” Bob Delaney (Mississauga-Streetsville) said candidly Tuesday.

The mea culpa came after days of controversy over the comments at a breakfast meeting last Thursday with constituents to discuss Premier Kathleen Wynne’s pre-election budget, which improves pharmacare, child and seniors’ care and would push the province back into deficit for six years.

“With respect, that’s bull----,” he said testily in response to a query from a Mississauga News reporter about the elevated debt in the fiscal blueprint that projects a deficit of $6.7 billion this fiscal year, boosting the overall provincial debt to $400 billion by 2025.

“We have tripled (the debt) and we’re proud of it, because we can afford it,” Delaney, added in the exchange caught on audio tape.

“It’s the responsible thing to do. It’s the correct thing to do. It’s what people have asked us to do and I would do it again and do it proudly,” he told the crowd at a Streetsville restaurant.

“I initially did not think I said that,” a contrite Delaney recounted Tuesday in an interview with the Star, saying he’d meant to tout the infrastructure and social program legacy of the Liberals in getting Ontario to bounce back from a deep recession that hit in 2008.

He apologized to the Mississauga News reporter, Graeme Frisque, for publicly challenging his account of events, admitting “It was my recollection that was incorrect.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli said Delaney’s initial response is telling with the June 7 provincial election fast approaching.

“This is just another example of why Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals are untrustworthy.”

Wynne is standing by Delaney, who once compared the political fiasco over the cancelled gas plants to the U.S. space program putting a man on the moon and more recently called police on the mother of an autistic child planning to protest at his constituency office.

“All of our MPPS are enthusiastic about the investments that we are making,” she told reporters at the Davenport-Perth community centre Tuesday, where she joined in a Zumba fitness class and boasted of an extra $1 billion to help seniors stay in their own home longer.

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The budget, which will form the basis for Wynne’s election campaign, includes about $8 billion in new program spending the premier says is needed to make lives easier, in the form of things such as improved child care and extending pharmacare to seniors over 65.

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“But look, we worked very hard to balance the budget,” she added Tuesday. Having done that hard work, we recognize that more care is needed and that’s why we’re making these investments.”

Saying it is “less than 1 per cent” of the size of the provincial economy, she defended the new spending that new PC Leader Doug Ford has slammed as excessive and bribing taxpayers with their own money.

“There are good supports in place, but there are not enough,” said Wynne, who called the election a “tipping point” between her vision and Ford’s approach to “cut and let people fend for themselves.”

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