Set the draconian regime for Ontario prescribed by economist Don Drummond this week against the rosy 2012 budget Alberta has just brought down and what you have is the stark picture of a two-tier national economy.
Even if one discounts the fact that the Alberta roadmap is designed to see the ruling Tories through an imminent provincial election, the circumstances behind the production of each document make the two provinces about as different as Germany and Italy.
On the one side, there is talk of irreparable fiscal damage if every inch of fat and an additional amount of the actual flesh of Ontario’s public services is not put under the knife.
On the other, in Alberta, there is the commitment to a steady flow of new money for health and education and the promise that its status as Canada’s lowest tax jurisdiction will be maintained.
It is not the first time that it has been more pleasant to be the premier of Alberta than Ontario, but it may be unprecedented that the premier who resides at Queen’s Park has as few or fewer strong cards in his economic hand as his poorer Quebec counterpart.
At least in the short term, the job of Ontario premier has become the worst political job in Canada. By the same token, the life of the Prime Minister is about to become more complicated.
Canada has always had some version of a multi-tier economy with have and have-not provinces, a fact of the federation’s life.
But never in the past has the majority of voters lived on the wrong side of the economic track, with little or no expectation of better tomorrows anytime soon. The implications for the way shrinking federal revenues are shared between the provinces could be profound.
And then, even if Premier Dalton McGuinty were to set aside some of Drummond’s most politically unpalatable recommendations, the upcoming Ontario budget could be the toughest in living memory.
It has by now become a cliché to say that the belt-tightening brought about by the Mike Harris Tories in the mid-90s as part of the Common Sense Revolution as well as the less recent Rae days will pale in comparison to the upcoming round of cuts. With a lean-year budget in the works on Parliament Hill, Harper may have to revisit the pace if not the substance of the cuts he has in mind if only to avoid contributing to a pile-up that could see Ontario go into such a funk as to imperil hopes of a sustained recovery.
In the early 90s, the timing of the introduction of the GST compounded the damage of an ongoing recession. In the subsequent Liberal war on the federal deficit, a combination of reduced federal health transfers and provincial budget cuts brought medicare to the brink.
In both instances, global economic prospects were less uncertain than they are now.
Looking at Ontario through a federal telescope, one would — on the basis of the recent minority cycle on Parliament Hill — be tempted to conclude that McGuinty’s fiscal efforts are doomed to fall short of the mark.
As minority prime ministers, Paul Martin and Harper both survived or tried to survive by spending their way out of tight parliamentary corners.
But McGuinty may hold at least one advantage over the federal minority regimes of the recent past and it is the nature of the opposition that he faces in the Legislature.
Like the then-Reform party, the Ontario Tories are home to the constituency that is the most likely to support an aggressive restraint agenda.
Like Preston Manning in 1995, Tim Hudak will have to choose between pushing hard for visible results on the province’s bottom line or pushing back against every proposed Liberal cut.
In the 90s, a fiscally conservative federal opposition provided Martin and Jean Chrétien with enough political cover to make moves that Brian Mulroney and his Conservatives could not even have contemplated.
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Even if one discounts the fact that the Alberta roadmap is designed to see the ruling Tories through an imminent provincial election, the circumstances behind the production of each document make the two provinces about as different as Germany and Italy.
On the one side, there is talk of irreparable fiscal damage if every inch of fat and an additional amount of the actual flesh of Ontario’s public services is not put under the knife.
On the other, in Alberta, there is the commitment to a steady flow of new money for health and education and the promise that its status as Canada’s lowest tax jurisdiction will be maintained.
It is not the first time that it has been more pleasant to be the premier of Alberta than Ontario, but it may be unprecedented that the premier who resides at Queen’s Park has as few or fewer strong cards in his economic hand as his poorer Quebec counterpart.
At least in the short term, the job of Ontario premier has become the worst political job in Canada. By the same token, the life of the Prime Minister is about to become more complicated.
Canada has always had some version of a multi-tier economy with have and have-not provinces, a fact of the federation’s life.
But never in the past has the majority of voters lived on the wrong side of the economic track, with little or no expectation of better tomorrows anytime soon. The implications for the way shrinking federal revenues are shared between the provinces could be profound.
And then, even if Premier Dalton McGuinty were to set aside some of Drummond’s most politically unpalatable recommendations, the upcoming Ontario budget could be the toughest in living memory.
It has by now become a cliché to say that the belt-tightening brought about by the Mike Harris Tories in the mid-90s as part of the Common Sense Revolution as well as the less recent Rae days will pale in comparison to the upcoming round of cuts. With a lean-year budget in the works on Parliament Hill, Harper may have to revisit the pace if not the substance of the cuts he has in mind if only to avoid contributing to a pile-up that could see Ontario go into such a funk as to imperil hopes of a sustained recovery.
In the early 90s, the timing of the introduction of the GST compounded the damage of an ongoing recession. In the subsequent Liberal war on the federal deficit, a combination of reduced federal health transfers and provincial budget cuts brought medicare to the brink.
In both instances, global economic prospects were less uncertain than they are now.
Looking at Ontario through a federal telescope, one would — on the basis of the recent minority cycle on Parliament Hill — be tempted to conclude that McGuinty’s fiscal efforts are doomed to fall short of the mark.
As minority prime ministers, Paul Martin and Harper both survived or tried to survive by spending their way out of tight parliamentary corners.
But McGuinty may hold at least one advantage over the federal minority regimes of the recent past and it is the nature of the opposition that he faces in the Legislature.
Like the then-Reform party, the Ontario Tories are home to the constituency that is the most likely to support an aggressive restraint agenda.
Like Preston Manning in 1995, Tim Hudak will have to choose between pushing hard for visible results on the province’s bottom line or pushing back against every proposed Liberal cut.
In the 90s, a fiscally conservative federal opposition provided Martin and Jean Chrétien with enough political cover to make moves that Brian Mulroney and his Conservatives could not even have contemplated.
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