Has Anyone Read the PC Plan? 2 When he launched his plan, Tim Hudak claimed that he had three different economists sign off Theres one problem: None of them did If you read my letter I state that the methodology they use to create their fiscal plan is reasonable, not the plan. I do not comment on any partys plans only their methodology. (Ernie Stokes, iPolitics.ca, May 22, 2014) Pedro Antunes, deputy chief economist at the Conference Board, told me in an interview that the Conference Board is not endorsing the Million Jobs plan nor did it even see the plan. (iPolitics.ca, May 14, 2014) Zycher didnt study (the PC plan). His work was done months before the current election campaign and its not based on the specifics of what Hudak says he would do as premier. (Ottawa Citizen, May 12, 2014)

Tim Hudaks Plan Source of job creation Average Yearly Cumulative Total Baseline growth (yearly average of previous 10-years) 65,400 523,200 Lower tax rate on employers from 11.5% to 8% 14,976 119,808 Ending wind and solar subsidies 5,048 40,384 Reduce the regulatory burden 10,600 84,800 Develop the Ring of Fire 550 4,400 Participate in New West Partnership Trade Agreement 199 1,592 Apprenticeship reform (calculation shows net baseline) 21,280 170,240 Breaking traffic gridlock in Toronto and the GTA 12,000 96,000 Reduce personal income tax burden following a balanced budget (over second 4 years) 5,885 47,080 100,000 fewer positions in government workforce (over first 4 years) -12,500 -100,000 Restrain public sector in line with population growth and a focus on frontline professionals (over second 4 years) 5,398 43,184 TOTAL 128,836 1,030,688 3

Baseline Growth 4 523,200 jobs more than half of the plan are from what the PCs call baseline growth These are jobs that would be created anyway if the province maintained the status quo of the last decade, the Tories acknowledged. (Canadian Press, May 13, 2014) Hudaks plan will drive Ontario into a recession, ensuring these jobs wont be created under his leadership

Corporate Income Taxes Hudak relies on a Conference Board Analysis for support for his claims about job creation arising from reduced corporate taxes Using the same document, there are three major issues with the PC plan 5

Corporate Income Taxes Issue # 1 6

Corporate Income Taxes Issue # 2 The PCs start with the Conference Board analysis of an immediate 1% reduction in the Corporate Income Tax rate Then they multiply the effects by 3.5, to reflect their 3.5% proposed reduction in CIT rates However, their cuts will be phased in, rather than brought in immediately, so the job impacts predicted by the Conference Board, cant just be multiplied 7

Corporate Income Taxes Issue # 3 The single biggest issue with the PC plan is that theyve confused person-years of employment with new jobs The Conference Boards analysis of a 1% cut: The Conference Board defines a person year of employment as one full-time job for one year In other words, over 10 years, those 42,800 person-years of employment does not mean that 42,800 jobs will be created It means that 4,280 permanent jobs will be created. If you multiply the impact of a 1% corporate tax reduction by 3.5, that represents 14,976 jobs To get to their claim that their Corporate Income Tax cuts would create 119,808 jobs, the PCs multiplied the total number of jobs created by 8 for each year of their plan In other words, this isnt double counting, its octuple counting 8

Wind and Solar subsidies 9 Hudaks plan assumes that ending subsidies for clean energy sources will add $20B to GDP and create 40,384 jobs This is based on Benjamin Zychers work What Zycher actually says is that removing the subsidies will create 5,048 jobs in total: Once again, the PCs have taken the total number as an annual number, and multiplied by eight

Reducing the Regulatory Burden The PC plan assumes 84,800 jobs created from a reduction in red tape Again, they look to Benjamin Zychers work for justification They take a total number of 10,600 and treat it like an annual number, again counting each job eight times: m 10

Personal Income Taxes Hudak has said that if he gets a second mandate, hell cut personal income taxes by 10% on average (CJBK Radio, May 15, 2014) Benjamin Zycher, the US economist that Hudak used to validate his numbers tells us that a 10% reduction is the equivalent of about two percentage points (Zycher paper, page 16) The Conference Board of Canada tells us that a one point reduction in PIT will support 1,975 jobs in the 4th year after implementation So a two point reduction will support 3,950 jobs. Again, the PCs confuse person-years of employment with new, permanent jobs, overcounting by a multiple of eight 11

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Tim Hudaks Plan Source of job creation Average Yearly Cumulative Total Baseline growth (yearly average of previous 10-years) 65,400 523,200 Lower tax rate on employers from 11.5% to 8% 14,976 119,808 Ending wind and solar subsidies 5,048 40,384 Reduce the regulatory burden 10,600 84,800 Reduce personal income tax burden following a balanced budget (over second 4 years) 5,885 47,080 TOTAL 101,909 815,272 13 If they did their math right 0 14,976 5,048 10,600 3,950 34,574 Hudaks jobs numbers on these components of his plan are off by 780,698 jobs or 95.76%

Tim Hudaks Recession

Ontarios Economy Ontarios nominal GDP is estimated to be $685.5 billion in 2015-2016 Government program spending of $120 billion is 17.5% of GDP, or more than $1 out of every $6

Hudaks Cuts In Hudaks balanced budget plan, he plans to reduce spending by $6.457B in 2015/16 But hes also accounted for $2.15B in savings, because of a public sector wage freeze The problem is that the 2014 budget does not build in any additional funding for wage increases As a result of this error, Hudaks 2015/16 cuts will actually be $8.697B

Quantifiable Impact on GDP As a share of provincial GDP, the $8.697B cut is 1.27% That is spending that will be taken directly out of the economy Theres also an indirect, spin-off impact The Federal government estimates the multiplier for government austerity to be 1.5 So the total impact of Hudaks cuts will be 1.9% Projected real GDP growth in 2015/16 is 2.5% That leaves you with just 0.6% real growth

Unquantifiable Impact on GDP 1 Real GDP growth would be further threatened by the disproportionate jobs impact that public sector spending cuts have Jim Stanford: In fact, since government programs are relatively more labour-intensive than other sectors, the decline in employment could be more than proportional.1 Theres a further impact on GDP that will be felt as some of the PC cuts work through the economy, including: cuts to business support programs reduced consumer spending as public sector employees await decisions to be made on lay-offs 1 http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2014/05/06/how-not-to-create-a-million-jobs/)

Unquantifiable Impact on GDP 2 As GDP growth falls, the revenue coming in to government falls as well This requires further cuts to keep the balanced budget plan on track These impacts are difficult to quantify, but will reduce GDP growth further