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But when Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk looked at the books in her pre-election report on the province’s finances, as required by law, she reached far different conclusions.

Lysyk said the Liberals had a deficit of up to $4.5 billion in 2017-18, the year they claimed a $600 million surplus, followed by a projected deficit of $11.7 billion in 2018-19, or 75% higher than the Liberals’ prediction of $6.7 billion; a $12.2 billion projected deficit in 2019-20, or 85% higher than the Liberals’ prediction of $6.6 billion; and $12.5 billion in 2020-21, or 92% higher than the Liberals’ prediction of $6.5 billion.

Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office, which, like the auditor general, is a non-partisan watchdog of government spending, gave a similar verdict on the Liberals’ deficits.

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It said the Liberals had a $3.6 billion deficit in 2017-2018 instead of their claim of a $600 million surplus, followed by a projected deficit of $11.8 billion in 2018-19, compared to the Liberals’ prediction of $6.7 billion; $12.4 billion in 2019-20 compared to the Liberals $6.6 billion prediction, and $12.7 billion in 2020-21 compared to the Liberals’ prediction of $6.5 billion.

The reason the projected deficits from the auditor general and financial accountability office were so much higher than those of the Liberals, was that both independent watchdogs concluded the Liberals misreported the financial impact on the budget of Wynne’s Fair Hydro Plan to cut hydro rates by 25%, and two government pension plans.

The Liberals claimed their reporting was accurate and hired a panel of consultants who, unsurprisingly, agreed with them.

We’ll stick with the findings of the auditor general and the financial accountability office.

So should the new PC government, and it’s all just one more reason for the necessity of finding out the true state of Ontario’s finances quickly.