Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
The Conservative government that followed Pierre Trudeau did not "clean up" the Government of Canada's finances. In fact, they made it even worse; federal deficit spending increased under Mulroney's Conversative government of the mid-late 80s and early 90s. It was the following Liberal government of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin that got Canada's fiscal house in order, balancing the budget and paying down the national debt. It only took Harper a few years to squander this and return the country to deficit spending.
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I think debt-to-GDP is probably the best measure, as it accounts for economic growth (and inflation to a degree). It's pretty clear what has happened over the last 40 years:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GGGDTACAA188N
Huge increase in the '80s and early '90s, steady decline from the mid '90s to mid '00s, big increase from the mid '00s to mid '10s, and then a slight decline from 2016 until COVID before a big jump up, and then declines since then. Obviously there's more to macroeconomics than the government in power, but there's a pretty clear correlation there over the last 40 years and it's certainly not Conservatives "cleaning up the mess". They normally end up going way into debt to offer tax cuts.