1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821423103321

Autore

Potter-MacKinnon Janice <1947->

Titolo

Minding the public purse : the fiscal crisis, political trade-offs, and Canada's future / / Janice MacKinnon

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Montreal : , : McGill-Queen's University Press, , 2003

©2003

ISBN

1-282-86121-2

9786612861215

0-7735-7112-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 316 pages, 5 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, portraits

Disciplina

339.5/2/0971

Soggetti

Debts, Public - Canada

Deficit financing - Canada

Fiscal policy - Canada

Expenditures, Public - Canada

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-308) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front Matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Illustrations -- The Origins of the Fiscal Crisis: Canary in the Coal Mine -- The Federal Origins of the Fiscal Crisis -- Helping People and Winning Elections: Spend, Spend, Spend -- A Bad Combination: Attacking the Civil Service and Signing Megaprojects -- Managing the Fiscal Crisis: The Provincial Scene -- The New Economy and the New Fights -- The 1993 Fiscal Crisis -- Differing Provincial Approaches to Deficit Reduction -- The National and Federal-Provincial Scene -- Paul Martin and the Finance Ministers’ Club -- Regional Divisions: A Tempest in a Teapot and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party -- Working Together? Redesign or Offloading? -- Martin’s Landmark 1995 Budget -- Health Care, Health Care, and Only Health Care? -- Going Backward or Forward? Post-Deficit Drift and Exiting Politics -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

MacKinnon, Canada's first female finance minister, provides keen observations on how personalities and shared regional perspectives cut



across party affiliations in the evolution of federal-provincial deliberations on managing the debt crisis. Although initially opposed to the radical cuts and downloading unilaterally imposed by the federal minister of Finance in his 1995 budget, she now argues that they were essential and analyses how they have irrevocably transformed the Canadian federation. MacKinnon provides a timely analysis of the implications of the fiscal crisis for the future of medicare and Canada's other social programs and shows why politicians must involve the Canadian public in an open and frank debate about the challenges and choices facing the nation.