Some good news from the Provincial Finance Minister on Tuesday.

Dwight Duncan says the projected deficit will be 3 Billion dollars less than what was originally laid out in the 2012 budget.

That deficit is now expected to come in around 11.9 Billion dollars, which is 14.8 Billion less than what was originally laid out.

If you look back to 2009, the Province had forecasted the deficit would be around 24.7 Billion dollars.

Duncan says corporate taxes were more than $1 billion above the budget forecast, while revenues were also up from the sales tax and the land transfer tax.

The government expects to spend $1.2 billion less than budgeted mainly because of lower interest on debt, and savings from reducing the ability of teachers to bank sick days and cash them out at retirement.

Duncan says the government will not need to use the $1-billion reserve in the budget, so will use half of that to reduce the deficit and the rest will be kept for any unforeseen events this year.

Despite the lower deficit, Duncan says the weakened global economy, especially in the U.S. and Europe, will require ``continued strong action'' if Ontario wants to balance its books on schedule by 2017-18.