Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford makes an announcement during a campaign stop on a farm in the town of Lakeshore, Ont. on Wednesday, May 23, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Geoff Robins

TORONTO— With two weeks to go in the Ontario election, a costed platform is still nowhere in sight from the Progressive Conservatives, even as the party has put billions in new spending and tax cuts on the table.

The party has repeatedly called its spending promises “modest” and “reasonable,” but economist Jack Mintz says each of the parties has been “making promises as if the sky is the limit.”

[READ MORE: Ford says his company would gain ‘very little’ from his tax cuts]

Setting aside the Progressive Conservative’s spending promises, a tally of the tax cuts and rebates proposed by the party shows a $5 billion annual hit to the treasury once they’re all rolled out.

Corporate tax cut: $1.4 billion

Personal income tax cut: $2.3 billion

Minimum wage tax cut: $500 million

Child care rebate: $389 million

Small business tax cut: $60 million

Gas tax cut: $1.2 billion

The Liberals and NDP have also released billions in new spending but unlike the Tories, they are promising to run deficits for every year of the mandate, should they form government. Both also released their spending plans, the Liberals through the budget and the NDP through their April platform.

The conclusion from former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page: “We do not see any major party with a strong fiscal responsibility agenda.”

Tories only party to promise a balanced budget, don’t say how

Without yet explaining how it would get there, the Progressive Conservatives maintain that they will balance their budget within a first mandate.

“We aren’t going to balance the first year, maybe not the second year but we will balance maybe the third or fourth year,” Leader Doug Ford said in Essex on Wednesday.

[READ MORE: Ontario Liberals target ‘fiscal mistakes’ made by NDP as campaign heats up]

So far the traditional costed platform — that would show how the party’s plans square — hasn’t been part of the Tory campaign. The only promise from Ford on a platform release date is that it will come before voters head to the polls in two weeks.

“It’s coming,” he said. “But I think we’ve been pretty responsible announcing and putting a dollar figure behind every single item that we announce.”

Ford repeatedly told reporters that he’s put a price tag on every promise, but at least one is still absent.

The Tories have promised to build 15,000 new long-term care beds in five years. The pledge came with no attached cost. The party’s former platform, the People’s Guarantee, pegged the cost at $77 million over five years. But the NDP promise to do the same puts the price at $2.1 billion — 27 times higher than the Progressive Conservatives’ former numbers.

Throughout the election, the Tories have positioned themselves as the only ones who will be responsible stewards of the public purse.

“Putting money back into your pocket instead of the government’s pocket,” is a frequent rallying cry for Ford. So far, though, he hasn’t explained how he will make that happen without throwing the province further into debt.

Economic analysis shows Tory deficits on track with NDP, Liberals

To fill the Tory’s platform void, economist Mike Moffatt has been tallying the promises and projecting the deficits that Ford would run for each year of his term.

Moffatt is the director of policy and research a the progressive think tank Canada 2020 and an assistant professor at Western University’s Ivey Business School. He has also consulted with the Liberals and another political party in the current election.

His analysis shows the PCs running deficits ranging from $5.8 billion to $7.6 billion — in line with, and sometimes higher, than those put forward by the Liberals and NDP.

He cautions that it’s a “rough” estimate because in many cases details on when the Progressive Conservative promises would roll out are missing. Moffatt says the takeaway from his analysis is “how far away we are from a balanced budget regardless of who’s getting elected.”

His breakdown doesn’t include the $6 billion in “efficiencies” that Ford has promised to find because he said it’s too “vague” to reliably build into the analysis. But Moffatt also didn’t include other spending promises like the pledge to invest $5 billion more in subways because it lacks detail. He also used the much lower $77 million price tag for the Tory’s promise for more long term care beds.

[READ MORE: Ontario’s books off the mark by billions: Auditor General]

On top of the costing for their new promises, Ford has said he will bring the provinces accounting practices in line with recommendations from the auditor general. That would add approximately $6 billion to their deficit, leaving Moffatt skeptical about a return to balance.

“The idea that any party could adopt the auditor general’s accounting and somehow reach a balanced budget by year four seems incredibly optimistic just because of the size of the hole that’s out there.”

Without the accounting changes from the auditor general, Moffatt said it’s possible the promised efficiencies would cover the deficit but it would be a “rare” achievement for a government.

About those ‘efficiencies’

What it would take to find four per cent (or roughly $6 billion) in efficiencies is up for debate.

The NDP and Liberals have tried to equate “efficiencies” with cuts and layoffs. But at the first leaders’ debate, Ford maintained “not one single person is getting laid off under our administration, not one person.”

Given that most of the province’s budget goes to payroll and services, Moffatt said “it’s hard to see” how cutting $6 billion from the province’s budget won’t lead to job loss.

However Mintz, a president’s fellow at the University of Calgary’s public policy school said he believes its doable. Changing procurement practices and implementing more of the Drummond Report are two avenues he suggests looking at.

Other than promising a government-wide audit, Ford hasn’t said where the efficiencies will come from.

“You have to scratch your head,” Mintz said about the Progressive Conservative plan so far. The party is “not providing a path forward about how the fiscal problems are going to be dealt with.”

Mintz warns that even without the new promises, Ontario was already facing fiscal “headwinds” from unfunded liabilities in health care and public sector pensions, to more competition from the United States and a debt-to-GDP ratio creeping up to 40 per cent.

“I would be quite alarmed by it,” he said.

So far Page said a debate on those issues hasn’t happened. Page is the president of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa. His office reviewed the NDP’s platform.

“It looks like a fiscal responsibility debate and policy agenda will be punted until after the election,” he said in an email. “No political party has yet put fiscal responsibility front and center in the campaign.”

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