There was a point in the first provincial leaders’ debate on Monday night when NDP Leader Andrea Horwath asked PC Leader Doug Ford what he would cut to make his stated budget goals.

“That’s not my vocabulary,” Ford said.

He has a notably eccentric vocabulary, in which “folks” is an all-purpose interjection, though often used as a synonym for “taxpayer,” which itself means something like “my precious.”

“Cuts,” though? Not in his vocabulary. As he went on to say, he (like his late brother before him) prefers to use the word “efficiency.” He keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

Those of us who recall a few years ago in this town will know that in Doug Ford’s mind, for instance, the permanent closing of a library might be called an “efficiency.” Or the termination of service on a bus route. Or the elimination of a school breakfast program.

Most of us, when we hear “more efficient” think it means doing the same thing using fewer resources, or doing more using the same resources. Clearly that’s why it’s an attractive term for a politician. Except in Ford’s vocabulary, it often means “not doing something anymore at all.”

If everyone is clear on that, it could save a lot of confusion if he one day announces — having promised no layoffs — that a bunch of government employees are being served “efficiency notices” that mean they will no longer have jobs, for instance. It’s just one of many instances where his particular vocabulary, however, is not an aid to understanding but a hindrance.

“Savings,” is another one of those tricky ones in his vocabulary. Especially “$1 billion in savings.” At the debate last night he mentioned it again for the bajillionth time — the claim that when his brother was mayor of Toronto, they found over a billion in savings.

The tricky part of this one is that it is very difficult to even tease apart what it means. When the brothers Ford first started making this claim back in 2013, many of us in the press (including me, then writing for The Grid, and Daniel Dale here at the Star, and Matt Elliott at Metro, as recently pointed out by colleague David Hains) tried to fact check it, and found it untrue.

We were able to check it at all because, back then, the Fords helpfully provided a breakdown of what savings they were talking about. And reviewing those numbers again today, the most interesting thing about them is not some nitpicking about whether the vehicle registration tax brought in $43 million or $50 million per year, but that the idea of adding that collection of numbers together is purely nonsensical.

For instance, they counted the elimination of a fee — the vehicle registration fee — as a “savings.” Which may be a way to look at it. It’s a loss of revenue for the city, but it is money saved by some residents. But then they go and count an increase in other fees as a “savings” too. One is an expense for the city, one is new revenue for the city, but the Fords just added those two numbers together.

Then, in some cases, they counted the expected budget savings over seven years of specific moves in their four-year total. In some cases, they counted a raise they gave public employees as a “savings” because they compared it to an arbitrarily larger raise they could have given them.

And in many, many cases, they just cherry-picked certain things to include while ignoring the rest of their budgets — those public employee contracts with only small raises, for instance, were included in the list, while the large raises they gave the police department were not included.

So while it was possible to go and check if the numbers they provided accurately reflected the number in some line of the budget, and many of us did so, the exercise was deeply flawed because the very premise was absurd. Even if the numbers were accurate, jumbling them together and adding them up in the way they did and saying that was an amount “saved” was next to meaningless.

Ontario's three main party leaders squared off Monday in the first debate before June’s provincial election. Andrea Horwath, Kathleen Wynne and Doug Ford were asked after the debate how they plan to combat criticisms they face. (The Canadian Press)

The definition of BS (or the word that abbreviation usually represents — the spelled-out version is, you could say, not in the Star’s vocabulary) was laid out by philosopher Harry Frankfurt as distinct from a lie. Lying is consciously concealing and opposing the truth. But BS is unconcerned with the truth altogether. Of the BS artist, Frankfurt wrote, “He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

It is as if this definition was written to define this very billion-dollar claim.

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Back when the Fords originated this boast, in 2013, I looked at the actual city budgets to try to determine how much was “saved” according to more conventional definitions. City spending was up $219 million per year over 2010. Property tax revenue was up $179 million per year. Fees charged to residents were up $15 million per year net (even after including the $50 million per year subtracted by the vehicle registration fee cut). And the budget surplus was $200 million lower than in David Miller’s last year as mayor.

The city spent more. People paid more in taxes and fees. “Savings”? Well, it’s a matter of vocabulary, I guess.

During Monday’s leaders’ debate, Ford said to Premier Kathleen Wynne, “You obviously don’t understand numbers.”

If it was his numbers she didn’t understand, it would be hard to blame her. In accounting as in other things, he has a vocabulary all his own.

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