In a provincial budget buildup that's lacked much drama, one of the more intriguing storylines is about a figure that looks like an accounting error.
With program spending well over $100-billion, a missing $63-million wouldn't have much impact one way or another on Ontario's deficit woes. It would, however, have a huge impact on child care - denying daycare centres a steady level of funding as they face new challenges from the province's expansion of full-day kindergarten.
That being the case, one might have expected Dalton McGuinty's Liberals to confirm long ago that the funding will be in Thursday's budget - sparing themselves the spectacle of protesting mothers on the lawn of Queen's Park, and a rash of media stories.
Instead, the Liberals have decided to keep everyone in suspense so they can mount a public-relations campaign against the federal government.
Their basic argument is that Stephen Harper's Conservatives keep withdrawing from spending commitments, leaving the province on the hook. "Every time the federal government steps up to the plate, and says we've got funding for a program, and then withdraws from that, people look to us to fill in that space," Mr. McGuinty complained Tuesday.
There is indeed a pattern on that front. Mr. Harper has little interest in helping the provinces with social spending that doesn't fall strictly under federal jurisdiction, and he's not afraid to tear up agreements that were initiated by his predecessors.
But for Mr. McGuinty to claim that he has been blindsided on daycare is a bit rich, given how much time he's had to adjust.
Fully four years ago, the Tories cancelled Paul Martin's national daycare plan and replaced it with a subsidy that gives parents $100 per month for each child under the age of six. The provinces were paid part of what Mr. Martin had promised them, and it was made clear that they would not be getting any more.
Most provinces used that money long ago. Ontario went a different route, using its $252-million for daycare investments of $63-million in each of the next four years.
In other words, it was never an annual payment from Mr. Harper's government to Mr. McGuinty's, which is how the Liberals have recently tried to frame it. Rather, it was a lump-sum payment that the province turned into an annual one, in the hope that by the time the money had expired their federal cousins would be returned to office and in position to revive Mr. Martin's plan.
That, of course, hasn't happened. And so, facing the reality that Mr. Harper's Conservatives will be in power for a while yet, provincial officials are seizing the opportunity to make a point.
As a general rule, bashing the Tories plays well with the Liberals' constituency. But in this case, they risk doing themselves harm.
Mr. McGuinty has long been warned that an unintended consequence of his full-day kindergarten plans - widely recognized as his legacy project - could be to kill off daycare centres by taking four- and five-year-olds out of them. And he's been advised (including by Charles Pascal, whose report provided the model for the new early-learning system) that he would need to provide some top-up funding to prevent that from happening.
At best, the Liberals are now talking about maintaining what's become the status quo; at worst, they may take money out of the system.
It's hard to believe they'll go that far. But few would have expected they'd let it get to this stage just to make a philosophical point.