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Ontario is having an election Thursday in which the three major party leaders scrupulously ducked the biggest issue.

As a result, whether Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives or Andrea Horwath and the NDP form the next government — Premier Kathleen Wynne having already conceded her Liberals are done like dinner after 15 years in power — nothing will really change.

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Because on Friday, Ontario will still be one of the world’s most indebted non-national governments, the Liberals having hiked public debt to $325 billion in 2018, 134% higher than the $138.8 billion they inherited from the previous PC government in 2003.

All the numbers are bad and getting worse.

Government spending at $158.5 billion this year, is up 114% since 2003.

The debt-to-GDP ratio, a key indicator of Ontario’s economic health (the lower, the better), is at 37.6% and rising, a 38% increase since 2003.

Paying interest on debt, which does not lower the debt by a penny, now costs Ontario taxpayers $12.5 billion annually, up 30% from 2003.