Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunk
The Liberals massively reformed Ottawa to eliminate deficits and left a large surplus when they left office. They also likely would not have lowered the GST. All other things being equal, the deficit would have been essentially gone two years sooner. All told Chrétien/Martin were much better fiscal stewards than Harper has been.
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It really is apples and oranges though. The Libs had the benefit of a booming global economy, Harper has had to deal with a severe global recession/depression for the majority of his tenure. Also while I would agree that the Chretien Libs did a good job getting the fiscal house in order let's not gloss over how they did it. They broke their key election promises by keeping the GST and slashing transfers to the provinces (which is basically just downloading the debt) plus they took a ton of money out of the EI fund. While you may not like Harper or his policies at least he has kept the large majority of his promises.