The Ontario government has also now reported in the 2014 Budget that Ontario has the lowest revenue per capita of any province. This is particularly notable as other provinces are quite a bit poorer than Ontario and therefore have a much more limited ability to pay for public spending. (Also notable in this chart is the weak role federal government transfer payments play in Ontario finances.)

The Ontario government has also now reported in the 2014 Budget that Ontario has the lowest revenue per capita of any province. This is particularly notable as other provinces are quite a bit poorer than Ontario and therefore have a much more limited ability to pay for public spending. (Also notable in this chart is the weak role federal government transfer payments play in Ontario finances.)

Ontario has the lowest public spending of all the provinces on a per capita basis (see the chart from the 2014 Ontario Budget below). So there is little reason to suspect that we have an over-spending problem. If anything, this suggests we have an under-spending problem.

Low Ontario revenue is not a one-year flash in the pan. Statistics Canada data for 2009 (the last year before Stats Can terminated the series) indicates that Ontario had the lowest per capita revenue at that time as well. And by quite a ways.









The Stats Can data, however, goes a little further. It indicates that Ontario has the lowest revenue as a percentage of the economy (GDP) of all the provinces. Arguably, this is better way to compare provinces as it considers the capacity of each province to pay. Below is a chart comparing "own source" revenues from the various provinces. ("Own source" revenues are those only from measures imposed by the Ontario government - -they exclude transfers to the Ontario government from the federal government).









Own source revenue for Ontario was 14.4% of GDP, while in the rest of Canada it was 17.9%, i.e. an astonishing 3.5 percentage points of GDP lower in Ontario.





If Ontario had taken the same own source revenue as the rest of Canada, the treasury would have an extra $19.5 billion in 2009 . The deficit would be toast and our big problem would be to figure out how to spend the extra cash.







