Media Release: FAO releases 2021-22 Annual Report

[La version française suit le texte anglais.] 

FAO RELEASES 2021-22 ANNUAL REPORT

TORONTO, July 26, 2022  Today, Peter Weltman, Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer, released his 2021-22 Annual Report. This report summarizes the work of the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) in support of its mandate to provide independent analysis of the state of the Province’s finances, trends in the provincial economy and related matters important to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

In 2021-22, the FAO released 21 reports on a range of topics including government spending plans, the costs of existing or proposed government programs, and economic and revenues forecasts that could affect the government’s finances over the medium and longer term. This included a ground-breaking analysis of the Cost of Climate Impacts on Public Infrastructure in Ontario, the first in a series of climate reports with more scheduled for release in 2022-23.

In response to requests by the Standing Committee on Estimates, the FAO released Spending Plan Review reports on the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Long-Term Care. These reports provided a financial overview of each ministry, an analysis of key financial issues, and a review of proposed 2021-22 spending by program.

The FAO is proud to support Members of Provincial Parliament in their work by providing relevant and authoritative information on government policy. As the trusted source for independent and non-partisan analysis of government finances, the FAO will continue to monitor new policy initiatives, offer timely reports on developments, and innovate to cover important emerging issues.

Find our full report on our website, here.

Quick facts:

  • The FAO’s website continued to draw the highest number of engagements among the general public, with a record 197,278 unique page views in 2021-22, up 16 per cent from 2020-21.
  • For the second year in a row, the most popular FAO report was Ontario Health Sector: A Preliminary Review of the Impact of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Hospital Capacity with over 12,000 unique website views in 2021-22.
  • The FAO was mentioned in print media 5,800 times in 2021-22, most frequently appearing alongside terms such as “province”, “report”, “government”, “pandemic” and “surgical backlog”.
  • The FAO saw dramatic growth in followers on social media, with year-over-year increases of 18 per cent on Twitter, 75 per cent on Instagram, 55 per cent on LinkedIn and 16 per cent on the FAO’s email subscriber list.

About the FAO 

Under the Financial Accountability Officer Act, 2013, the Officer provides independent analysis on the state of the Province’s finances, trends in the provincial economy, and related matters important to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Visit our website and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn

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For further information, please contact: 
Jessica Martin l 647.527.2385 l jmartin@fao-on.org l fao-on.org