EDITORIAL PAGE — Lament for a province

In mid-1985, Ontario’s debt stood at $30 billion. Throughout the following five years of Liberal profligacy, despite a robust economy during most of that half-decade, the debt rose to $39.3 billion. (Believe it or not, the Liberals actually managed to post a surplus of revenue over expenditures for one of those years.)

Since 1990, the New Democratic Party has been in power in Ontario. That government’s fiscal record is, to say the least, abysmal. In the space of just four years, it has managed to equal what it took all the governments of the preceding 123 years to do — run up the debt by $40 billion. According to The Globe and Mail’s figures, from Confederation to 1990, successive governments managed to bring the total bill to just under $40 billion. Since the NDP took office only four short years ago, the debt has run up another $40 billion and now stands at $80.2 billion.

If we scale this down to more personal terms, every resident of Ontario now owes — beyond his credit card totals, car loans, mortgages and so on — nearly $8,000. (Don’t even begin to consider the personal burden of the federal debt; it’s too disheartening to contemplate.)

The truly alarming prospect, however, is that the provincial government’s own projections point to continuing annual deficits and a total that will surpass $100 billion in another three years.

We would be less than fair if we were to blame this ugly financial mess entirely on the New Democrats. They came to power at the end of a cyclical boom in Ontario, and they inherited expensive programs instituted by the Liberals (and before them, the Conservatives) at a time when federal transfer payments were decreasing.

Moreover, they ran smack up against the worst recession the province has ever seen, and they took over the reins of power just as trade globalization and the sweeping changes wrought by the advent of the “Information Age” began taking effect.

Being in a generous mood, let us also add that the wage freezes imposed on the public sector through the NDP’s so-called Social Contract were effected with a minimum of labor chaos. Had a Liberal or Conservative regime attempted wage freezes, there would have been carnage on the provincial labor scene. (Ironically, in that situation, the NDP would have been in opposition, no doubt stoking the fires of labor unrest.)

But despite having inherited a mess, the New Democrats will not be granted a full pardon simply because their assuming power was ill-timed. Through four budgets, they have demonstrated they do not comprehend the magnitude of the problem facing the province, nor indeed the country. Like its counterparts in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, Ontario’s NDP government is praying an economic upturn will bail it out.

(Alberta’s Conservative premier, Ralph Klein, seems to be one of the few provincial leaders prepared to address the problem squarely. He has cut provincial spending drastically and aims to balance the budget in the not-too-distant future. The federal Liberals, on the other hand, took the easy route — in the short-term, that is — with their latest budget. But when financial markets responded negatively, Finance Minister Paul Martin promised “massive spending” cuts in his next budget.)

Ontario, like most other governments in this country, spends far more than it takes in. It can’t go on forever.