Premier Kathleen Wynne is quietly proposing an advisory panel to examine provincial revenues and help shape budget decisions, the Star has learned.

Officially, the group of independent experts would emphasize belt-tightening to government departments as tax revenues are lower than previously projected and as the Liberals struggle to pay off a budget deficit that sits at $11.7 billion.

But sources say the panel is also designed to send a partisan rocket to Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak that his plan to balance the books in 2016-17 is impractical if not impossible.

Although the Liberals claim they will keep to their target of eliminating the shortfall by 2017-18, the new Revenue Forecasting Advisory Panel passed by cabinet could provide political cover to delay that.

In an unusual move, ministers signed off on a Jan. 15 order in council allowing for the creation of a “short-term advisory body, accountable to the Minister of Finance” Charles Sousa to report back by mid-May.

“The minister shall determine the terms of reference for the advisory panel and may amend them from time to time,” the cabinet document states.

Significantly, any findings by the experts, who will be paid a small per diem, might never be made public.

“All material produced by the advisory panel, including documents, interim reports, advice, recommendations and research studies, shall become the property of the minister,” the document continues.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed Tuesday nothing is set in stone.

“If the panel is indeed struck, it would provide independent expert advice on the current revenue situation based on economic growth and fiscal capacity, including transfers from the federal government,” the official said.

The Liberals are modelling the proposed revenue panel on a report to the British Columbia government by former Bank of Montreal economist Tim O’Neill in 2013.

B.C. Liberal Premier Christy Clark had O’Neill review the latest economic forecasts before that province’s spending plan was delivered last year.

His findings were released to British Columbians the day before the budget was tabled.

“Overall I was satisfied with the degree of prudence included in this budget. It’s important to avoid excessive optimism in revenue projections when full-scale economic recovery has yet to take hold,” O’Neill said at the time.

Among his recommendations to B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong was a change to the natural gas price forecast, which forced Clark’s government to make “a last-minute adjustment to the province’s fiscal plan.”

That’s because O’Neill, now a Prince Edward Island-based consultant, felt the government in Victoria relied too heavily on overly optimistic private-sector forecasts of natural gas prices, which were routinely off the mark.

“They tend to consistently underestimate future prices as they are steadily rising and to overestimate them as they are falling,” he said in his report.

More relevant to Ontario, which does not have the benefit of significant energy revenue, O’Neill said most economic forecasters “underestimated the severity and breadth of the downturn in 2008-09” that caused gross domestic product be lower than expected.

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“This, in turn, caused government revenue projections to be significantly overstated relative to actual outcomes.”

That appears to be what Ontario is now wrestling with as revenue projections for next year are more than $5 billion lower than had been forecast in the 2010 provincial budget.

In his Nov. 7 fall economic statement, Sousa warned “uncertainty in the global economy is leading to lower revenue growth.”