Article content

If you’re not skeptical about the true state of provincial finances, you should be.

The official balance sheets of provinces across the country mask billions of dollars in debt related to a series of megaproject follies being pursued by provincial governments and government-owned power utilities. While their debt doesn’t officially appear on provincial balance sheets, taxpayers will be left footing the bill when the electricity rates needed to pay them off become so economically crippling and politically unpalatable that they will require a bailout.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Provincial finances are worse than they look as politicians hide their megaproject boondoggles Back to video

A chorus of auditors general and ratings agencies have questioned this trend of masking liabilities, but have seen their warnings ignored by political leaders determined to bury the risk of pet megaprojects.

The province will hide that debt from its own balance sheet

The most recent example of mixing electricity liabilities with taxpayer liabilities comes in Ontario. The province recently passed the Fair Hydro Act, which will see it issue as much as $26.2 billion in debt over the next decade to finance temporary rebates to electricity customers — all to mask the rate increases caused by a decade-long extravaganza of clean-energy spending.