Was Dalton McGuinty fibbing about Ontario's Liberal healthcare spending during the Sep.20, 2007 CTV televised Leaders' Debate?

During the Leaders' Debate televised on CTV (Sept. 20, 2007) Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty twice said that "one-half" of program spending today goes to health-care. (As McGuinty says on the two short clips)

However, an Osprey News Network editorial in The St. Catharines Standard and the Niagara Falls Review (both appearing on Dec.4, 2007) reports that “about 46 cents of every dollar Ontario spends on services this year will go to health-care”. Is this figure inaccurate?

Or, did health-care spending drop 4% in the last two months?

Was health spending actually “one-half” (i.e. 50%) of Ontario program spending, as McGuinty twice said during the CTV network televised debate, or, was he just fudging the numbers? Did McGuinty even really know at the time how much his government spends on health-care, let alone how it’s spent?

If health spending by Ontario is around $38 billion, then a four percent variance adds up to a lot of tax-dollars glibly unaccounted for by the Liberal Premier’s campaign generalizations. Add to that grey area the further billions McGuinty taxed us with his Liberal health “premium”, and the fact that the last Liberal budget had a $2+ billion surplus, and it looks like the Grits are rolling in tax-money.

Why then, isn’t the “health tax/premium” being cancelled? McGuinty’s oft-repeated claim that he needed that money may turn out to have been a gross exaggeration.