TORONTO—The Ford government is refusing to explain the cuts its making to the Indigenous Affairs budget.

In the spending plan tabled last week, the Progressive Conservatives revealed the department will get an eight per cent cut this year and that last year there was a 27 per cent in-year cut to the department’s budget.

The government says the spending cuts will not affect programs, but it can’t say what will be affected by the cuts.

“It is a reduction in the budget, it’s very modest. We were able to find predominantly our cost savings in operations efficiencies as opposed to cutting programs,” Energy and Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford told iPolitics Wednesday.

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Pressed for an example of those efficiencies, Rickford said his office would provide that information. But iPolitics has been asking his office for details on the cuts since Friday and late on Wednesday a spokesperson said no other information would be provided and more details will be released in the May spending estimates.

Premier Doug Ford’s first provincial budget detailed a drop in base funding for the department of $6.6 million — from $81 million to $74.4.

The document though, doesn’t mention a much bigger in-year cut that the Progressive Conservatives made last year. In the former Liberal government’s March budget, it dedicated $101.3 million for the Indigenous Affairs department’s base funding. The Tories are now predicting only $81 million of that was spent.

Rickford said he couldn’t explain that drop in funding. In the past the new government has dismissed the last Liberal budget as a pre-election budget that was crafted to buy votes.

“I won’t make any comparisons to how the Liberals accounted for their money — from the global budget to budgets of individual ministries — but we’ll be happy to provide you with the information that you’ve asked for with respect to our ministry,” Rickford said.

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If you ignore the pre-election budget and instead compare Tory spending plans to previous Liberal spending plans — when they were trying to balance the budget — the Indigenous affairs budget is down 15 per cent.

NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa told iPolitics he’s skeptical of the government’s promise that the cut won’t affect programs.

“That is not possible, to me that’s just double talk,” he said.

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