Ontario debt costs $11b in interest

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a non-profit advocacy group, says Ontario’s debt has reached more than $272 billion and it’s costing $11 billion this year alone to just pay the interest. Monday, the group used those numbers as it offered some ideas to pay down the debt, saying the debt has doubled under the last ten years of Liberal rule. One idea was to eliminate what was referred to as “corporate welfare” grants to businesses which the group says would save $2.7 billion a year. Another idea, get rid of full-day kindergarten, to save $1.5 billion a year.

Candice Malcolm is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation: “We’re talking about the extra programs the government doesn’t even need to have their hand in, in the first place. Focusing in on the things that people really want from the government that they really expect a high value for and get rid of the programs that are frivolous, without proper consultation.”

The taxpayers’ lobby also wants the government to end the 10 per cent rebate on electricity bills which cost $1 billion a year and to kill the 30 per cent tuition discount for most college and university students. The federation says the cuts it’s proposing would be more than enough to eliminate Ontario’s projected deficit of $11.7 billion and leave some money to make a payment to lower the overall debt. But Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, says zero deficits mean nothing if we have zero jobs and zero growth. He also says the province is on track to balance the books by 2017-18.