Fraser Forum - Spring 2012: Avoiding a Crisis: Fixing Onario's Deficit

In this issue:

A credible 2-year plan to balance the budget
by Charles Lammam and Niels Veldhuis
The Ontario government predicts that it will be running a decit until 2017/18 but with the right spending cuts, it could have a balanced budget within 2 years.

Canada’s history of dealing with decits in the 1990s is a lesson for Ontario today
by Niels Veldhuis, Milagros Palacios, and Charles Lammam
Regardless of political stripe, many other provincial and federal governements have been able to cut their decits quickly and eectively in the past. Here, we look at four examples—Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and the Chretien government—for examples.

Time for Ontario to consider fundamental education reform
by Lance Izumi
Ontario should look west for examples to restructure K-12 education spending.

Ontario’s easiest budget cut of all: Corporate welfare
by Mark Milke
Ending subsidies to businesses would be one of the easiest ways to cut Ontario government spending.

Wage board: The solution to reining in public sector compensation
by Amela Karabegović and Milagros Palacios
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty hinted that public sector wages may be cut in the upcoming budget. Setting up a wage board would be step in the right direction.

Improve health care and tackle the deficit
by Nadeem Esmail
Adopting two new health care policies would save the Ontario government billions in expenses and help get the province back on track.

Reforming Ontario’s public drug plan
by Mark Rovere
Three reforms to Ontario’s drug plan could provide significant savings.

Ending Ontario’s costly and misguided electricity subsidies
by Joel Wood
Ontario should cut the subsidies for the consumption and production of electricity.

Getting Ontario’s taxpayers off the hook for private pension liabilities
by Nachum Gabler and Neil Mohindra
Ontario’s Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund should be scrapped in favour of a less risky alternative.