When Michael Wilson became Canada’s Finance minister, he inherited a string of government deficits he called the “silent menace.”
After his parents moved to Etobicoke, Ontario’s current Finance minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy, met Wilson when the latter was still in Parliament. After Bethlenfalvy started volunteering for him, he began to imagine a similar career path for himself. Like Wilson, Bethlenfalvy found himself steering the government’s finances at an unenviable moment, even though they were appointed at different points in their respective governments’ life cycles: Wilson was then-rookie prime minister Brian Mulroney’s first appointee, while Bethlenfalvy was Ford’s third in as many years.
Nevertheless, Bethlenfalvy would have been uncomfortable inheriting that bottom line. Much like Ford, who reminded everyone this November he believes “the worst place you can hand your money over is to the government,” Bethlenfalvy considers fiscal prudence part of his political DNA. Because they both had business careers before going into politics, Bethlenfalvy says he and Ford “agree on most things.” They’re also “very much on the same wavelength” when it comes to the importance of innovation and keeping promises.
This fall’s economic outlook and fiscal review — also known as the fall economic statement or mini-budget — shows the government might be spared a record deficit, again thanks to higher tax revenues. The $21.5-billion deficit it projects would still be the province’s worst-ever unadjusted shortfall, but it’s $11.6 billion less than what Bethlenfalvy’s spring budget projected.
“Right now, we have an incredible amount of uncertainty,” Bethlenfalvy said of those projections. “No one really knows what’s around the corner.”
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