Perhaps it’s the fact my coming of age occurred at a time when Canada, and Saskatchewan, were in a debt crisis. I remember my first income tax forms having a picture of a loonie on the front with a pie graph superimposed. It showed how much of each federal tax dollar went to servicing the federal debt.
The early 1990s were tough, financially speaking, for both the federal government and most provincial governments. There was a realization that we were at the end of our rope, and something needed to be done.
In Ottawa, Jean Chretien and his finance minister (and future prime minister) Paul Martin earned their stripes as deficit slayers. In Saskatchewan, it was premier Roy Romanow and his finance minister, Janice MacKinnon.
They made tough, tough choices. Closing more than 50 hospitals, including a base hospital, is not an easy thing to do. To many people, the provincial NDP will never be forgiven for that. Our military, today, has still not fully replaced the Sea King helicopter fleet as a result of the prime minister saying, “I will take my pen and I will write zero helicopters.” – Chretien
Yet it was exactly these sort of difficult choices that saved us from the brink of economic disaster. If you’re not sure what that looks like, look to Greece. They know. They’ve been going through it for several years.
It was that giant reset button hit in the 1990s and early 2000s, cutting deficits to zero, and finally running small surpluses, that put us on the right financial footing to survive the crash of 2008. When the rest of the world faltered, we were still strong, because we made those tough choices beginning 17 and 15 years before.
But in the last few years, we have collectively forgotten this wisdom and the benefits it brought us. Provincial governments have gone whole hog on deficit spending. Ontario’s provincial debt is now insanely in league with nation-states.
Alberta’s spending was unsustainable before the crash. It squandered its Heritage Fund, the same fund that had been the model for Norway’s own sovereign wealth fund. It’s the most successful in the world, by the way, while Alberta’s is a mere shadow of what it could have been.
Instead of having a massive sovereign wealth fund to help it during these hard times, Alberta is now pleading to Ottawa for scraps.
Our new prime minister, Trudeau the Younger, seems to have learned well from his father’s example. Spend, spend and spend some more. Spending is the answer to everything!
After inheriting federal finances that were either balanced or very, very close, due to seven years of clawing our way back from the global financial crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threw it all away in one fell swoop with a $29.4 billion deficit, and similar deficits in the years to come. Year-over-year spending up 6.9 per cent, apparently because money grows on trees.
It’s as if all the lessons of the hard-fought last 25 years have been tossed out the window. We’re going to spend like crazy and not give a damn.
Romanow, MacKinnon, Chretien and Martin were all nuts, if you follow the thinking of nearly all our federal and provincial leaders, save Brad Wall. Even his record isn’t perfect on dipping into the rainy day funds. Instead we have Notley and Wynn and Trudeau.
Going back the last 40 years, either Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney and Grant Devine were good stewards of our country, or Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Roy Romanow, Lorne Calvert, Brad and Ralph Klein were. Rachel Notley, Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau seem to think it was the first group.
What do you think?
I hope you know your Greek, because if things continue this way, we’ll be in the same shape as Greece, soon enough.
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
