New Fraser Institute report details Ontario Liberals driving the province deep into bankruptcy

TORONTO, ON—By every measure, Ontario is much deeper in debt than California, the poster child for fiscal irresponsibility, finds a new report released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“California is routinely criticized by pundits, politicians and economists for its inability to control spending and reduce deficits. Yet Ontario, with a fraction of California’s population and a significantly smaller economy, carries a debt load almost twice as large as California’s,” said Sean Speer, associate director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Comparing the Debt Burdens of Ontario and California.

The numbers tell the tale. Despite the province’s smaller size, Ontario’s $267.5 billion (Cdn) outstanding government debt is higher than California’s $144.8 billion (US). As a share of the economy, Ontario’s bonded debt (the part of a government’s debt represented by bonds) is 40.9 per cent compared to California’s 7.6 per cent.

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