Ontario’s independent fiscal watchdog is sounding the alarm.
Noting the previous Liberal administration spent $16.5 million on what she considers to be “partisan” ads last year, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk wants the Progressive Conservatives to strengthen the Government Advertising Act.
The Liberal government watered down that law in 2015, and that change “took the discretion away from the office, taking away our independence pretty much from this process and requiring us to pretty much be a rubber stamp,” Lysyk said.
The result is that her office now must “approve an ad even if it’s factually inaccurate,” she said.
“From my office’s perspective, that is just a paper-pushing exercise that has created additional work versus a value-add for the taxpayer.
“The act creates the optics that we are performing a useful function to save taxpayer dollars being spent on partisan advertising, but we are not doing that.”
While in opposition, the Tories promised to return the auditor’s power to veto advertising by amending the legislation.
But after 11 months in office, Premier Doug Ford’s government has no immediate plans to tighten the restrictions.
Instead, the Tories have gone on a multimillion dollar advertising blitz attacking the federal Liberal carbon-pricing measures with TV and radio commercials that Lysyk warns would not pass muster under the previous law.
“The reason we’ve continued the practice of commenting on the old rules is because … the public … would be assured that we would consider the issue of partisan and have discretion over that,” she told the legislature’s standing committee on public accounts Wednesday. “That’s the way it had functioned for many years.”
