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Provinces face big pinch: watchdog

'Health care is the Pac-Man that will eat up their budgets'

By: Julian Beltrame

Friday, Sep. 28, 2012 at 8:11 AM | Comments: 0

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page appears as a witness at Commons Public accounts committee to discuss the F-35 Fighter Jet on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, May 3, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick (CP)

OTTAWA -- Ottawa's cost-cutting measures have put it on a sound fiscal track for the future, but the provinces are left holding the bag, says Canada's budget watchdog.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page's latest long-term projection on government finances suggests Ottawa has little to fear from the loss of revenue and rising costs tied to the aging population. Page also judges the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan fiscally sound.

But the report, released Thursday, shows provinces and municipalities adding so much debt over the next 70 years or so they will resemble Greece and Italy if something is not done.

The report calculates provinces and their municipalities have a fiscal gap of about two per cent of gross domestic product now -- or $36 billion -- and by 2086, will have debt worth 350 per cent of GDP. Meanwhile, Ottawa will be in a structural surplus.

Page cautions this is a "what if" scenario and is not a forecast, but adds governments need to be aware of the fiscal track they are following to ensure they make the right policy decisions.

"We're not saying in the report that the provinces have to panic and start taking measures right now," Page said in an interview. "But in terms of dealing with aging demographics... if they wait five years, the gap goes from something like two to 2.3 (per cent of GDP). If you wait 10 years, it goes to 2.6. If you wait 20 years, it's well over three per cent (and) it starts increasing exponentially."

In essence, the federal government has already taken "decisive" measures to address the fiscal gap, Page said.

While he has been critical of the Harper government in the past for failing to acknowledge it was in a structural deficit several years ago -- for which he took personal blowback -- Page said Ottawa has acted to rectify the situation.

In the past two years, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty put a limit on growth of health transfers to provinces, essentially froze program spending for five years and raised the age of eligibility for benefits under old age security to 67 from 65.

The change in health transfers alone is responsible for about three-quarters of the provincial fiscal gap, Page said, or about $25 billion in fiscal room.

"Health care is the Pac-Man that will eat up their budgets," he said of the provincial situation.

He notes health-care spending has been rising at about seven per cent a year for the last decade, and he projects it will rise on average by five per cent going forward. But even that is too much, given the expected trend speed of the economy will slow to between three or four per cent in nominal terms.

"You can't have health-care spending growing that much faster than GDP and not have some type of sustainability problem when health care is such a big part of your budget."

Not all provinces have a fiscal gap. The report does not separate out resource-rich provinces such as Alberta from the have-nots, so the two per cent estimate is in fact larger for provinces such as Ontario and Quebec and some in the Atlantic region.

Page said the provinces with structural deficits will find it more difficult than Ottawa to unload their problems, in part because they can't peg health-care expenses to GDP, as Flaherty has.

As well, demographics impact provinces more than Ottawa because as the population ages, health-care costs are expected to explode.

Some provinces have begun to pinch in other areas in anticipation of the coming squeeze. Quebec attempted to raise tuition fees, triggering massive protests.

Following receipt of a report from economist Don Drummond in February, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty introduced a two-year wage freeze on all public servants, among other measures.

Page's report says the provinces have time to act.

-- The Canadian Press

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