Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford arrive to attend a news conference to announce details on the construction of a gigafactory for electric vehicle battery production by Volkswagen Group's battery company PowerCo SE in St. Thomas, Ont. on April 21, 2023.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
Daniel Dufort is president and chief executive of the Montreal Economic Institute.
The Ontario budget on Tuesday included an extra $100-million for the Invest Ontario Fund to dole out more funds to large businesses.
This underscores a troubling fact: When governments are competing for who can give the largest handout to wealthy corporations, taxpayers are the losers.
In recent years, Quebec and Ontario have been engaged in a race to the bottom to see which government can dole out the most taxpayer dollars to corporations the fastest. Quebec once had a huge lead, but under Premier Doug Ford’s watch, Ontario is giving the king of handouts a run for its money.
In the past couple of years, Ontario has overtaken Quebec as the biggest champion of taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Ontario has spent an average of $9.1-billion a year in constant dollars on corporate handouts since 2018, all under Mr. Ford’s watch. That’s more than a 100-per-cent growth in........