Every Ontario man, woman and child owes an additional $1,891 thanks to a record provincial deficit of $24.7 billion, greater even than the impact of Ottawa's massive shortfall on each Canadian.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan delivered the revised deficit projection for this fiscal year in the fall economic statement Thursday, saying Ontarians must wait until the March budget to learn what sacrifices will have to be made as the Liberals cobble together a restraint plan to eliminate the record shortfall.
Duncan admitted he and Premier Dalton McGuinty have no idea yet how the government will tackle the problem.
"We haven't even begun to look at the choices we'll make," the finance minister told reporters following his address to the Legislature.
"Why rush?" added a senior finance official afterward, explaining the government is leery about slashing spending too soon and taking support out of the recovering economy at a delicate time.
The province's per capita deficit is higher than the $1,661 burden that Ottawa's $56 billion shortfall places on every Canadian resident.
That uncertainty has left swirling the prospect of unpaid "Dalton Days" for public servants, similar to the notorious "Rae Days" that NDP premier Bob Rae forced on teachers, nurses and bureaucrats in 1993.
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