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Auditor General skeptical about Liberal promises

First Published:

Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter has released his review of the provincial government’s pre-election finances.

Ever since the Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act passed in 2004, the government has to release a financial statement and forecast before an election, and the auditor general has to review the information to give his two unbiased cents.
McCarter says the Liberals were cautious about their assumptions on revenue and interest costs from the provincial debt; but he thinks they were too optimistic about their promises to cut spending.
He’s not sure the Liberals can find the savings in health care or public service salaries that they are looking for.
“Over the last 8 years, the government expenditures have grown about 7 percent annually, and they’re projecting now, over the next 3 years they can hold that rate to about 1.8 percent or actually less than the rate of inflation.”
“Really the bottom line is that overall we felt that, rather than being cautious and prudent, the expense projections were optimistic, they were pretty aggressive and they often reflected a ‘best case’ scenario.”
Lisa MacLeod, Conservative accountability and finance critic says the auditor’s report shows the government has a spending problem.
“Dalton McGuinty has a spending problem in respect to continued waste in government, with his continued back-room deals and with his secret wage agreements with unions.”
Finance minister Dwight Duncan says he welcomes the report, and he adds the Liberals can indeed slash annual spending by almost 400 percent.

Video: Lisa Hepfner reports (Evening News)


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