The Tory’s finance critic says the Wynne Liberals have been caught again over how they are artificially reducing the deficit. Vic Fedeli first says they used the sale of Hydro One to lower the deficit and next they’ll use the 4.3 cents a litre cap and trade gas tax to do the same thing. Fedeli says in a complex move, the Liberals first allocated billions of dollars into infrastructure projects.
Then as they start collecting the cap and trade tax, those funds will go the infrastructure projects and the original allocation is removed. Fedeli says the original allocation will be used to reduce the deficit, but this only works for two years. That’s because the money from the Hydro One sale runs out in 2018 and since the Liberals show no sign of curbing their spending, he says the deficit will increase again. Fedeli makes the claim in his Focus on Finance newsletter.