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“As a result of this restraint, provincial spending on public services would be reduced by $1,100 per person or by more than 10% over the next five years,” Weltman said.

Finance Minister Vic Fedeli said the FAO’s assessment of his budget confirms he has produced a credible plan to balance the budget.

“We are taking a balanced approach to managing the province’s finances and we are already seeing the success of our plan,” Fedeli said in a statement. “We are instilling confidence in Ontario and creating a climate for investment and job creation.”

The government is also taking a value-for-money approach to every spending decision, and has identified savings of about 8 cents on every dollar, while bringing in CARE and LIFT tax credits to return more money to Ontarians, he said.

The FAO said it could only find about 4% of the projected 8% in savings.

The Ford government is already involved in a war of words with Toronto Mayor John Tory and other mayors over the in-year downloading of public health-care costs onto municipalities.

There is significant pushback as well on plans to increase class sizes.

NDP MPP Sandy Shaw said the cuts already announced by the provincial government have hurt the things most important to Ontarians like health care and education.

“We’ve already seen that people are paying the price for these cuts,” Shaw said. “We’ve already seen how the most vulnerable in our community are the first to suffer.”