2018 Ontario Provincial Election Discussion

[SunriseChampion]

@steveintoronto, cheers for posting that article. For years now (probably since I was in university....2003) I haven't understood the argument that we are somehow not competitive in terms of taxation, especially given our relatively high level of services. I'm speaking mostly of comparisons made with the US which I think we can agree is not a place any country should take inspiration from in terms of efficiency of taxation and resultant public services.

 

[steveintoronto]

Any examples to illustrate your point? I'm not saying you're making things up, I'm just curious.

Yeah, I got lucky using the right search tags Googling to get answers to this question. There's even better articles than this, I'll link my search parameter below this: (No apologies for the length of this quote, this is essential to discussing/debasing the litany of false comparisons to Cdn gov't accounting techniques)

News

Financial State of the States 2015
September 19, 2016
You can view a PDF Version of the report here.

Introduction

Executive summary

Summary of findings

Report findings

Top 5 sunshine and bottom 5 sinkhole states

How your state balances its budget, while going into debt

Financial report timeliness

New Mexico

New pension standard

Retiree health care debt rule will be in effect in two years

Truthful, transparent, and timely information is important

FACT-based budgeting

Recommendations

Methodology

How is my state doing? 50 state ranking

Government reports are complicated, long documents. At Truth in Accounting (TIA), we believe that citizens deserve easy-to-understand, truthful, and transparent financial information from their governments. Without this, how can they participate in democracy?

In order to give citizens the government financial information they deserve, Sheila Weinberg founded TIA in 2002. At TIA’s inception, Sheila’s work focused on the federal government, specifically how the government could claim it had a surplus even as its debt was rising.

As Sheila became more involved with government financial analysis, her research spread to the state level. In 2009, Sheila expanded her efforts, and completed an analysis of the finances all 50 state governments. As TIA has grown, our research now also extends to the city and municipal levels.

In 2011, we created State Data Lab (SDL) to give context to our data. Our users can use SDL to see how their state or city government is doing, compare it with other states and cities, and see demographics, economic, and financial trends.

In order to achieve our mission of educating and empowering citizens with understandable, reliable, and transparent government financial information, we produce reports at the federal, state, and local level for citizens. These reports cut through political tricks used in government finance, and are presented in plain English, so citizens can understand their government’s true financial condition.

Every September, we launch our report entitled The Financial State of the States. This is a comprehensive analysis of the 50 state governments’ finances, and includes background on new finance standards coming into play, trends across the states, and key findings.

[...continues at length...]

https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2015

My search parameter that reveals *many* articles describing similar/same as above:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=us+s...95j0j7&client=ubuntu&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[SunriseChampion]

Cheers mate, between this and the two national papers, I guess I'm not getting to my laundry today.

 

[Videodrome]

I got a very long robocall from the Trillium party today. Is anyone else getting them?

 

[SunriseChampion]

They have a decent amount of candidates in Toronto, mostly Scarborough. I just read through their policies on their website. Kinda libertarian, but not my kind of libertarian (if that makes any sense). They seem sort of faux-libertarian. In some things they are all about it, in others they're not. Their marijuana policy beats the underservice that will be the LCBO monopoly, so they have my ear there. Though they are a bit crusty about the legalisation.
Against carbon taxes (which I don't agree with) but also against making exemptions for any company within our current regulatory framework (which I can agree with).
They're for fast-tracking foreign medical credentials with in-province practicum which is also a good idea.
They're all about referendums, which I don't agree with.
Their sex-ed policy says they want it to be based on hard science. Ok, sure, I always say my religion is physics.

Man, if I had to choose between a Doug Ford-led PC Party and these dudes, I'd choose Trillium.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

In fact, most US states, since balanced budgets are the law, are deeply in debt, just not on the books. They 'outsource' the debt. I scoff every time a rightist zealot compares Ontario's debt to US States. Even though Ontario is creative in keeping a lot of debt off the books, it pales compared to US states when the same accounting parameters are used.

Any examples to illustrate your point? I'm not saying you're making things up, I'm just curious.

Yeah, I got lucky using the right search tags Googling to get answers to this question. There's even better articles than this, I'll link my search parameter below this: (No apologies for the length of this quote, this is essential to discussing/debasing the litany of false comparisons to Cdn gov't accounting techniques)

https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2015

My search parameter that reveals *many* articles describing similar/same as above:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=us+s...95j0j7&client=ubuntu&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Just to save people a click, this chart comes from your source:

Ontario's debt per taxpayer presently sits at $23,000, which as as bad as California, the 43rd worst out of 50 states.

There has been so much fear-mongering over Ontario's fiscal "disaster", that I've tuned much of it out at this point. I don't believe our situation is fantastic, but the claims of Ontario literally being as bad as Greece are clearly bullshit. Unfortunately these bs claims are often coming from the PC party itself, which does not give me confidence in their ability to properly manage Ontario's finances.

Ontario has [apparently] balanced its budget this year (just in time for the election), but spending plans will plunge us back into deficit in the following years. I would like to see the balanced budget maintained.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Elliot is certainly a good choice. I don't cringe watching and listening to her like I do many others. She comes across as believable, knowledgeable and likable.

Elliot will obviously appeal to the people that frequent this forum, and others that lie to the centre and the left on the spectrum. But the strong right-wingers within the PC party also have to be appeased. During Brown's reign, we've seen increasing discontent within the PC party, with the threat of an eventual exodus to the Trillium Party. I want to know if Eliott will appease these right wingers at all, or if she'll just encourage more of them to switch to the Trillium Party. Elliot would be even less conservative than Brown, so appeasement would be a challenge for her.

 

[rbt]

Ontario's debt per taxpayer presently sits at $23,000, which as as bad as California, the 43rd worst out of 50 states.

It's difficult to compare US states to Canadian provinces as provinces have far more responsibility and a larger revenue stream to match it.

California's non-federally sourced revenue for 2018 is only $82B.

In fact, Ontario has the 4th largest revenue stream out of all governments in North America (US, Can, Mex., Ontario). It also has the 4th largest amount of debt.

Ontario isn't unusual for Canada; Alberta has nearly the same revenues as Texas ($45B to 54B).

California's much lower revenue per-capita also supports a far lower debt per-capita. The overwhelming bulk of government revenue/spending in the USA (and most countries) is at the federal level. Canada is kinda an outlier with revenues at the regional tier of government raising the bulk of the funds

 

[Northern Light]

There have been a number of thoughtful and well researched posts in this thread the last couple of days, my thanks to all who have contributed, its what one hopes for when coming to a forum such as this: Learn, Share your Knowledge, Have intelligent discussion!

 

[Northern Light]

On the subject of debt.

There are any number of metrics by which one can measure, ranging from absolute debt, or debt per capita or debt to GDP, to percent of the annual budget devoted to servicing the debt, or projections
accounting for baked-in future expenses or revenues, in the absence of intervention.

None of these are "wrong"; none are 'right' in isolation either.

Where Ontario is concerned, I'm not overly worried about the current level of debt, in the current situation, with the proviso that lower would be better, and that I would rather see dollars spent on programs vs. interest.

Where I do have a real concern is the economy is coming off one its best years in the last decade, real estate prices remain near all-time highs, and we're only barely holding on to balance. On top of which, irrespective of one's politics one can agree there are areas that under-invested in such as hospitals, long term care, addressing homelessness, some critical infrastructure building such as the relief line.

My worries would be two-fold; one that if the economy goes south again, which it will at some point, the deficit and debt could become a material issue quickly.

Second, that the time for expanding fiscal capacity or for 'productivity' investment is generally when the economy is good; recessions are neither good times to raise taxes nor to begin material layoffs.

The tough choices have been kicked down the road.

That should not be read solely as an indictment of Wynne or the Liberals, as the opposition has not clamoured for new taxes or thoughtful efficiencies beyond righteous bleating about the gas plant boondoggle.

I would love to see a thoughtful conversation in the political realm, both about raising some taxes (corporate to 12% like Alberta, BC, Que etc.) and/or a single point on the sales tax; while balancing that with some tough choices such as merging the schools systems (yes, i know political 3rd rail); raising rents in public housing (along w/shelter allowances); or cutting tax breaks for wealthy seniors.

Achieving some new revenue, and some new savings, could result in a slightly lower debt, more fiscal breathing room and fund important investments at the same time.

I'm not holding my breath that any party other than the Greens will raise these issues, and they, as yet, are not electable, at least in my part of town; but one can live in hope.

 

[steveintoronto]

[...] Where I do have a real concern is the economy is coming off one its best years in the last decade, real estate prices remain near all-time highs, and we're only barely holding on to balance. On top of which, irrespective of one's politics one can agree there are under-invested in areas such as hospitals, long term care, addressing homelessness, some critical infrastructure building such as the relief line.

My worries would be two-fold; one that if the economy goes south again, which it will at some point, the deficit and debt could become a material issue quickly.

Second, that the time for expanding fiscal capacity or for 'productivity' investment is generally when the economy is good; recessions and neither good times to raise taxes nor to begin material layoffs.

The tough choices have been kicked down the road. [...]

A very good post! It pertains as much nationally as provincially.

Something rapidly emerging in both the Ford and Elliot camps is moving away from the 'Charter'. The charter was a naive idea that somehow the party could craft a platform, and then they'd elect the most apt pilot to fly it. And what's breaking it in both candidates' cases is "the carbon tax".

Obviously there's little hope that Ford can square the circle of how to replace it. He just promotes pulling things apart, not putting them together. But I'm absent any explanation from Elliot as to what replacement she has in mind...if any.

 

[SunriseChampion]

There has been so much fear-mongering over Ontario's fiscal "disaster", that I've tuned much of it out at this point. I don't believe our situation is fantastic, but the claims of Ontario literally being as bad as Greece are clearly bullshit.

Ha! Anyone claiming that we have it as bad as Greece is either lying or extremely uninformed. Greece, my eye!

 

[SunriseChampion]

Obviously there's little hope that Ford can square the circle of how to replace it. He just promotes pulling things apart, not putting them together. But I'm absent any explanation from Elliot as to what replacement she has in mind...if any.

I read an interview with her in the National Post yesterday where she said she was against the carbon tax, even though she understood its importance to the caucus members who helped implement the party's policy agenda and just wanted time to talk to both caucus members and party members about it and to get ideas about possible alternatives.
To be honest, her answer to the question sounded like the typical political blah-blah non-answer for the most part. It wasn't very reassuring. (Mr Chong, save us!)

As for Ford, he's already said that his plan to cover all costs related to lack of revenue from a carbon tax is to find "efficiencies". Like presumably slashing his own salary were he to be elected as a MPP. Yeah......sorry, he means "efficiencies" that don't affect him directly. Special champion of the down-trodden masses that he is.

 

[steveintoronto]

I read an interview with her (Elliot) in the National Post yesterday where she said she was against the carbon tax,

In effect, although she still has announced her candidacy, Mulroney said same. And of course Ford.

So already, unless an 'orthodox' candidate declares, the 'pledge' is in trouble. I'm concerned of talk to cancel the carbon tax with nothing to replace or improve it, but on the other hand, mandating a common platform is completely ridiculous too. And it's become the "Bible" to the caucus and other orthodox work-units.

Are they running people who have their own free minds or not? It's like imposing a uniform code at the School for Independent Thinking. And I must add, my shine for Mulroney is dimming. She's muttered "taxes" and "less government" and little else. So far, Daddy she isn't.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Yeah, but by all accounts, a lot of work went into their election platform and because the leadership race is so close to the election it's understandable that people would not want to tinker with what they have been promoting for a few months now. If I were a member who agreed with the platform as is, I'd be quite upset to see a newcomer trying to dismantle it piece by piece.
Then again, if caucus and the party executive are so adamant about having the carbon tax then they should probably go beg Michael Chong to take over. Of course, he's probably as interested in doing so as I am.