Can someone tell me whatever happened to the quaint old notion that it’s actually the government’s job to balance the budget?
I ask this not necessarily on my behalf, but on behalf of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau who seems rather dismissive of the notion.
(Although, Trudeau, may not be the only one. Here in Saskatchewan, we now see the much-admired Saskatchewan Party government borrowing $700 million for what is now a deficit budget to help pay for things like a bypass being built outside of Regina in possibly the wrong place.)
But I am also asking this question to people all too aware of consequences of not balancing the books.
After all, it’s unlikely anyone understands such consequences better than the people of rural Saskatchewan who paid dearly in the 1990s for the deficit failures of 1980s Progressive Conservatives.
At issue is the very good news from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government that the final 2014-15 budget numbers show an unanticipated $1.9-billion federal budget surplus. Coupled with the 2015-16 budget update, also showing a surplus, Harper and the Conservatives may now have an answer to much of the legitimate criticism they received during this election campaign.
Unfortunately, this seems lost on Trudeau, who is now proposing three years of deficits to pay for their $60-billion infrastructure spending campaign promise.
“Of the different deficits out there, the fiscal deficit isn’t the one that concerns Canadians,” Trudeau claimed.
Well, maybe this is so. But government is about making choices that produce balanced budgets.
And lest there is still any doubt of that ask rural Saskatchewan people who suffered greatly for past deficits.
For those who may be too young to recall, no one took a bigger hit in the 1990s under the NDP premier Roy Romanow’s deficit reduction strategy than rural Saskatchewan voters.
The closure of 52 rural hospitals, the lack of money for highways and schools, the increase in education property taxes, cuts to the urban and rural revenue sharing polls and cancellation of the GRIP contracts with farmers were just some of the hits rural people took.
One can argue until the cows come home whether these cuts were the right ones. It’s obvious how most rural people still feel about them. Today, there is not one, single rural NDP MLA.
But while New Democrats might have borne the political brunt for these decisions – and rightfully so given it was the NDP that made these decisions – few would argue that they were made for any other reason than to deal with deficit and debt.
And given that the NDP government was still rewarded with 16 years in office – the third-longest tenure in Saskatchewan political history and longest in 50 years – one can also argue that the NDP was actually well rewarded for its fiscal diligence.
Now, let us put such notions in the context of today’s federal politics.
It remains a mystery to many in this country now that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are still in this game at all in this election campaign.
Until the most recent budget news, the Harper Conservatives were in danger of having presented seven consecutive deficit budgets – hardly what one would call a testimonial to solid fiscal stewardship.
Also recently came the news that Canada was dealing with its second recession since Harper came to power, suggesting that the Harper government budget choices haven’t always helped a floundering Canadian economy. And then there is the lack of democratic accountability, including the Senate mess that has been the Mike Duffy trial.
But if Canadians – voters beyond rural areas and the west that remain the bedrock for the party – are somewhat more comfortable with Harper and company, it may be because of their stance on things like deficits.
Or at least, this might be the lesson that Trudeau and the Liberals will have to learn.
