QUEEN’S PARK – Despite expert advice to reverse course as early as 2011, the Liberal government ignored recommendations that could have helped restore Ontario to economic health, Cambridge PC MPP Rob Leone said today.

“The Liberals have been telling us a fairytale story about the budget, but their own top bureaucrats and experts do not even believe what the McGuinty-Wynne government is saying,”

Leone said. “Instead of being open and honest about the severity of cuts needed to balance the books, the Wynne government chose to not publish projections beyond 2016 and avoid accountability yet again.”

In confidential advice provided to the Liberal cabinet, top bureaucrat Peter Wallace reveals that the Liberal fiscal and economic plan “will not work”.

Describing the fiscal context as “screwed up” and “not pretty,” Wallace goes on to describe the Liberal plan as “toast.”  He offered a number of possible ways to remedy the situation ranging from being honest about the inability to meet deficit targets, making necessary decisions to reduce spending, and not disclosing the lack of fiscal plan.

“The Liberals were presented with a number of options for dealing with this terrible fiscal situation,” Leone stated.  “They could have made the tough decisions by reining in runaway spending, freeze government wages, and reforming public sector pensions.  Instead, they chose the option of not publishing budget figures for the last two years and torquing the numbers, which is an attempt to avoid scrutiny on the government’s lack of plan to bring this province to balance.”

Wallace stated that the choice the Wynne government is taking by not publishing the necessary data is “not remotely credible in the post-Drummond world.”

“We saw it with Dalton McGuinty and we’re seeing it with Kathleen Wynne. The Liberals keep putting their political interests first. The people of Ontario deserve better; they deserve an honest government that will lead this province back to prosperity,” Leone concluded.