Then, as now, there was significant debate over the status of the government’s books and McGuinty asked Peters to provide an unbiased assessment of the province’s accounts.

He concluded the deficit had been understated.

The Liberals were soon using the “inherited deficit” as justification to break a key election promise to run balanced budgets without tax hikes – and both hiked taxes and ran a deficit in their first budget.

Apart from being dubbed “Fiberals” by the Sun, that marked the beginning of a decade and a half of nearly continuous annual budget deficits and ever-growing public debt.

However, in those early days the Liberals respected the role of the province’s public watchdogs.