Ontario ends 2024-25 with lower deficit than predicted, enacts agency hiring freeze

TORONTO — Ontario wrapped up the 2024-25 fiscal year with a significantly lower deficit than initially projected in the budget, yet the province will implement a modified hiring freeze in an effort to control ballooning agencies, Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney said Friday.

Mulroney and Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy released public accounts that show the province ended the year with a deficit of $1.1 billion. The 2024 budget had forecast a deficit of $9.8 billion.

“As the government’s portfolio of projects have grown, so has the staffing growth in our agencies,” Mulroney said. “Therefore, to ensure growth in provincial agencies is consistent with our commitment to taxpayers, we are enacting a hiring freeze across all provincial agencies in Ontario.”

Staffing at the province’s 143 agencies, which include Metrolinx, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, has grown by five per cent over the last few years, Mulroney said.

“We believe that they’ve hired sufficient people to deliver on the mandate that we have given them and we want to make sure that, going forward, they have a culture of respect for taxpayer dollars with every decision that they make about hiring,” Mulroney said.

Mulroney explained that it’s not an absolute hiring freeze for agencies, but it will now become a process that the government controls.

“It means that if they want to hire going forward, they’re going to have to bring forward plans that are approved by government,” Mulroney said.

The change mirrors the Ontario public service hiring freeze that’s been in place since 2018. It will be in effect not only for provincial agencies, but also for provincial boards and commissions.

Ontario brought in $226.2 billion in revenue over the last fiscal year that ended in March, which is about $17.2 billion higher than the previous year.

Bethlenfalvy said the improved economic position is due to stronger tax revenues from higher-than-forecast economic growth plus increased revenue from the broader public sector.

The cost of borrowing came in $1.3 billion less than originally anticipated, Bethlenfalvy said.

“This is a direct result of lower overall borrowing costs and the careful management of the province’s finances,” he said.

“And it means that for every dollar we save on interest, we can instead invest that dollar towards the priorities that matter most to Ontarians: the economy, jobs, cost of living and infrastructure.”

Ontario’s overall debt is set to reach half a trillion dollars by 2027, an increase of some $100 billion under Premier Doug Ford’s reign since 2018.

Bethlenfalvy defended the province’s economic outlook, saying the economy had grown by some $350 million over that same time frame, leaving the debt-to-GDP ratio in a favourable position.

He said the province is investing in “good debt” with its $220-billion infrastructure spending plan over 10 years.

“That is good borrowing in the sense that that’s investing in hospitals, in highways, in subways, schools and a range of long term assets,” he said.

Liberal finance critic Stephanie Bowman noted that Ontario’s share of a historic settlement with tobacco companies contributed to the rosier financial picture.

“The $1.1 billion deficit for fiscal year 2024-25 would have been much larger if not for a $3.4 billion bump to revenues related to a settlement with tobacco companies,” she said. “Non-recurring revenue windfalls are an unsound way to manage the books.”

The province is spending too much and delivering too little to the people of Ontario, said the New Democrats’ finance critic Jessica Bell.

Bell said provincial agencies are “not abstract line items” and they include vital services such as the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and ServiceOntario.

“At a time when Ontarians need these services most, it seems as though the Ford government is ensuring that they are inaccessible,” Bell said in a statement.

She added that agencies like Metrolinx have seen their upper ranks swell while 800,000 Ontarians are out of a job.

“The Ford government should focus less on patting themselves on the backs, and more on how they can spend in a way that actually improves the lives of Ontarians,” Bell said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2025.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press