Article content

After the final leaders’ debate on Sunday, Ontario voters now face a choice between two parties paying for their promises with money they would have to borrow and one party funding them with cuts it can’t explain.

While deficit spending may be nothing new to Canadian voters, Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford’s promise to trim nearly $6 billion from the provincial budget without cutting any jobs is unusual.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Ford wants to find $6B worth of 'efficiencies' without cutting jobs — is that even possible? Back to video

And it raises an obvious question: is it even possible?

Ford wants to cut hydro rates, lower gas prices, lower income taxes and scrap the province’s cap and trade system. He has also promised to honour several hefty promises for public transit in Ontario cities.

Ford says he will “find efficiencies” and his rhetoric around government waste gives the impression there are public servants burning money in the parking lot and all it takes is a premier with an industrial-sized fire extinguisher to reverse the trend. And he’s not the only one who thinks so: over the last few decades, one of the most consistent results in modern polling is that Americans believe the government wastes about half the money it spends.