One would think even Premier Kathleen Wynne’s mathematically challenged government would understand why it’s not a good idea to take almost $5 billion a year out of Ontarians’ pockets.

But between her looming Ontario pension plan ($3.5 billion in new payroll taxes) and cap-and-trade scheme, ($1.3 billion in higher prices on goods and services), apparently not.

To be fair, the full impact on the Ontario economy won’t be felt for several years.

The bad news is these two programs, scheduled to start on Jan. 1, 2017, will become immediate drags on the Ontario economy which is already on the ropes.

During the federal election, it looked briefly like Wynne might back off her ill-conceived Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won and enhanced the Canada Pension Plan.

But federal and provincial finance ministers have since met and most of them decided that with the Canadian economy taking a battering due to the collapse in oil prices, now’s not the time to impose higher payroll taxes on workers and employers to enhance the CPP.

Which means Ontario is back to square one — imposing a 1.9% payroll tax on millions of workers (and their employers) who don’t have what Wynne considers adequate pension plans, in order to create her ORPP.

A Conference Board of Canada report commissioned by Wynne’s government says her plan will have a “small negative effect” on the economy initially, caused by higher prices for goods and services, lower wages and fewer jobs as businesses adjust their operations to cope with this new payroll tax.

But by 2045, we’re assured, disposable incomes will be higher than they would have been without the ORPP and by 2093, “real disposable income is $19.4 billion — or 1.2% — higher than it would be without the ORPP.”

Terrific. Back in the real world, the idea of Wynne’s incompetent, spendthrift, debt-ridden government lecturing Ontarians about not saving enough for retirement — and that she has a plan to fix everything — is absurd.

When combined with another Liberal money-sucking scheme — cap-and-trade — that should be enough to put the Ontario economy under water for years.

The best thing Wynne could do to help Ontarians now, rather than in theory decades down the road, would be to slow the insane rise in electricity prices which is driving businesses out of the province at the same time it puts more and more Ontario families — particularly seniors on fixed incomes — into fuel poverty.

Wynne could start to repair the damage by abandoning the Liberals’ mad experiment with costly, unreliable and inefficient wind and solar power, which was never needed to end Ontario’s reliance on coal-fired electricity.

But at this point, sadly, it’s obvious Wynne’s government has its mind made up and doesn’t want to be confused by the facts.