Premier Doug Ford will have to find “significant” new savings — almost $6 billion — in the last two years of his term to balance the budget if he plans to keep an election promise to provide personal income tax cuts, says Ontario’s independent financial watchdog.

This next round of spending cuts would match the cuts for this fiscal year and next contained in Finance Minister Vic Fedeli’s spring budget, Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman said Wednesday, prompting opposition parties to warn more pain is on the way.

“If you think that people are upset about the cuts the Ford government’s already made ... they’re going to be especially upset when another $6 billion of unannounced cuts happen over the next three years,” said Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

Weltman’s 36-page report stated “significant future policy decisions will likely be needed” for the government to maintain its track to a balanced budget in five years.

“They probably want to see how things unfold for the first couple of years, see how the economic projections work out, see how the revenue projections work out ... see how the plan is rolling out,” he told reporters when asked why the additional cuts have not yet been specified.

Weltman said the government’s planned slowdown in the pace of government spending is slated to be the most stringent since the Mike Harris PC administration that took power in 1995, and that the actual spending cuts will be equal to 10 per cent, or $1,100 per person.

Fedeli said the report confirms the government’s path to a balanced budget is “credible.”

“We are taking a balanced approach to managing the province’s finances and we are already seeing the success of our plan. Ontario is leading the country in job growth with the creation of over 170,000 jobs since we took office,” the finance minister added in a statement.

“We have identified savings of about eight cents for every dollar spent, while continuing to bring relief to families,” said Fedeli, pledging to provide tax and other relief totalling $26 billion to families and businesses.

Only half of that eight cents per dollar is now earmarked, Weltman noted.

Ford’s government is already under fire for cuts made to public health units, municipalities, stem cell and artificial intelligence research, libraries, legal aid, tree planting and flood prevention, among others.

“This is just the beginning. The Ford government has many more cuts in store for the people of Ontario, and there’s no telling which vital services will be next on the chopping block,” warned Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter.

New Democrat MPP and finance critic Sandy Shaw said more details of the first round of budget cuts are still “rolling out every single day” and warned “things are going to get worse” before the next provincial election slated for 2022.

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The premier has said the government must find “efficiencies” and spend money more carefully to put provincial finances on a sustainable footing.

Weltman cautioned that those efficiencies, such as a proposed streamlining of the health system, can be elusive.

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“There is significant risk that these initiatives may not produce the cost savings anticipated in the budget plan. While transformational changes to public services that lead to permanent efficiency gains are possible, they have generally been difficult to achieve,” he wrote.

But without the middle-class income tax reductions Ford touted in the weeks leading to his election victory last June, the government is on track to post a budget surplus of $6.4 billion by March 31, 2024, the Financial Accountability Officer said.

Ford acknowledged during his campaign the tax cuts would likely have to wait a couple of years until the government was on a better path to balancing the budget.

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