The Last of the Easy Budgets

Ontario Budget 2008

Hugh Mackenzie

Analysis 2008 Ontario Budget.

We had to wait a year for it, but the Ontario government has finally finished allocating the leftover surplus from its 2007–08 budget.

It says as much about Ontario’s past as it does its future:

Very little of what was announced in Budget 2008 is funded from 2008–09 revenue. As a result of dramatically reduced revenue estimates based on much lower forecasts of economic growth, increased costs will end up being financed largely through a reduction in one-time-only expenditures.

Furthermore, the size of this end-of-year cash flow means that virtually none of the investment initiatives announced in the budget has a secure funding base for the future.

Welcome to the last of the easy budgets. MORE