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Premier Doug Ford’s government was elected to clean up the fiscal mess left behind by its predecessors — $325 billion of debt to be exact, which marks a staggering increase of 134 per cent from the time the Ontario Liberals took office in 2003. At the time of the June 2018 election, the previous government was spending $40 million more every day than it was collecting in revenue. Let that sink in for a moment.

Ontarians wanted spending restraint and hoped that a change in government could get the job done.

Much to the chagrin of any Ontarian who waited 15 years for the province to spend less and pay down debt, the new government brought more of the same: increased spending and growing debt. To the surprise of many, the Ford government’s spending has surpassed that of its predecessor at its moment of greatest excess.

In the lead-up to last year’s provincial election, it was not uncommon to hear of then-premier, Kathleen Wynne, satirically referred to as Santa Claus. Her government was, after all, offering all sorts of free gifts to Ontarians in an attempt to curry electoral favour.

In its March 2018 budget, for example, she had added $20 billion in new program spending. In total, her budget was set to cost $159 billion, an increase of nearly 12 per cent from the previous year. But despite the goodies on offer, Ontarians rejected overspending in a decisive move toward restraint and placed Doug Ford in the premier’s chair.

Shockingly, the budget that followed revealed Wynne’s plan could have been the cheaper option. In the 2018-19 fiscal year, the PC government spent a total of $163 billion — a whopping $4 billion more than the Liberal party had planned. The province’s debt rose by nearly $12 billion.