TORONTO — A key ratings agency has downgraded its outlook on Ontario’s finances to “negative” from “stable” in light of the Liberal government’s plan to run six consecutive multibillion-dollar deficits.<\/p>\n
Moody’s Investor Services says spending pressure will challenge the province’s ability to “sustain balanced fiscal results” over a number of years.<\/p>\n
Moody’s also says financing requirements on the province’s debt — projected to be $325 billion in 2018-2019 — will be larger than previously believed, leading to a faster increase in interest expenses.<\/p>\n
Premier Kathleen Wynne defended the government’s pre-election budget, which will run a $6.7-billion deficit in 2018-2019, saying Moody’s change wasn’t a credit downgrade, which would effect borrowing costs for the province.<\/p>\n
The opposition Progressive Conservatives criticized the government, saying interest on the province’s debt, projected at $12.5 billion this year, is already crowding out services like health care, education and infrastructure upgrades.<\/p>\n
Moody’s maintained Ontario’s Aa2 issuer and Aa2 senior unsecured long-term debt ratings despite the change in outlook. Ontario heads to the polls on June 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TORONTO — A key ratings agency has downgraded its outlook on Ontario’s finances to “negative” from “stable” in light of the Liberal government’s plan to run six consecutive multibillion-dollar deficits. Moody’s Investor Services says spending pressure will challenge the province’s ability to “sustain balanced fiscal results” over a number of years. Moody’s also says financing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6020,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6017\/revisions\/6020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}