Ontario's Grim Future Gets Grimmer

In my column for the National Post this week, I discuss the consequences of the recent election in Ontario:

“Democracy is the theory that the voters know what they want — and deserve to get it, good and hard.”

The quote’s usually attributed to H.L. Mencken. Whoever authored it, it certainly applies to the province of Ontario this morning.

The Progressive Conservatives promised to close Ontario’s $16-billion deficit without raising taxes. Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals? See the quote above.

Ontario faced a near-term future of fiscal austerity, no matter who won the election. The ballot question in 2011 was: How was this austerity to be achieved? The McGuinty record was clear: The McGuinty version of fiscal austerity included continuing pay increases for public-sector workers.

The McGuinty version of fiscal austerity includes green-jobs boondoggles. Ontarians must overpay twice for energy: Once in the form of huge overpayments to uncompetitive solar and wind producers, and then again in the form of subsidies to companies that manufacture the components for solar and wind.

The McGuinty version of fiscal austerity will tilt toward tax increases and away from spending control.

Click here to read the full column.