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Last week, the Fraser Institute published a study (which I co-authored) documenting Ontario’s poor economic performance over the last decade.

Between 2007 and 2016 — across several economic indicators — we show that Ontario lagged well behind the national average.

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Steven Del Duca, Ontario’s minister of Economic Development and Growth, took exception and wrote a letter to the Toronto Sun accusing me of playing “fast and loose with the facts” while “cherry-picking” statistics and delivering a “tremendous insult” to Ontarians.

But in reality, it is Minister Del Duca who has presented a faulty analysis and lowered the level of discourse with insults and baseless accusations.

Here are the facts. Our study analyzed a decade of economic data—from 2007 to 2016. Starting our analysis in 2007 allowed us to include the recession, the recovery and the years since. In short, we measured Ontario’s performance from one peak in the business cycle (2007—just before the recession) to the latest year of comparable data (2016), which is likely near another peak.