Canada Is Balancing Its Budget By Politically Outfoxing Liberals
Our quiet neighbor to the north is set to balance its budget this fiscal year. To reach this goal Canada’s Conservative-led government has been outmaneuvering its liberal opponents. They’ve taken on their public unions, used private-sector ideas in the federal bureaucracy and streamlined government agencies. There are a lot of lessons here Republicans now running both houses of Congress should hear. For the answers I contacted Tony Clement, an elected member of the Canadian Parliament who has been serving as Canada’s President of the Treasury Board since 2011.
First, a little background on Clement will help to put what they’re doing in perspective. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in political science (1983) and in law (1986), Clement worked in the private sector before becoming a central part of Ontario’s “Common Sense Revolution.” (If only Republicans had such simple catchphrases for their political movements.) The main goal of Canada’s Common Sense Revolution was to lower taxes while balancing the budget. Their strategy for achieving this was basically to shrink the size and role of government. Mike Harris, a Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002, led this movement. While Newt Gingrich had his “Contract with America,” Harris, Clement and other Canadian Conservatives repeated the slogan: “Work for Welfare, Scrap the Quota Law [Affirmative Action] and Tax Cuts for Jobs—Common Sense for a Change.”
After Conservatives gained a majority in the Canadian Parliament in 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Clement as the President of the Treasury Board and tasked him with leading a government-wide spending review. In Canada, the President of the Treasury Board is comparable to a company’s chief operating officer. Whereas Canada’s Minister of Finance sets the budget—making him the Santa Claus of the Cabinet—Clement’s position is closer to the Scrooge.
Since being placed in this penny-pinching position, Clement’s goal has been to find ways to contain and reduce government spending. For example, on November 2, 2013, Clement backed a motion at the Conservative Party’s national convention to find ways to get public-sector pay and benefits under control. At the convention he vowed, as the minister responsible for negotiations with the civil service, to “alter the dynamics of collective bargaining as it has been done in this country over the last few decades.”
Now, a central part of the Common Sense Revolution was to do “exactly what I say I will do.” Clement is still following this mantra.
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Look North GOP -- Canada Is Balancing Its Budget By Politically Outfoxing Liberals - Forbes
Our quiet neighbor to the north is set to balance its budget this fiscal year. To reach this goal Canada’s Conservative-led government has been outmaneuvering its liberal opponents. They’ve taken on their public unions, used private-sector ideas in the federal bureaucracy and streamlined government agencies. There are a lot of lessons here Republicans now running both houses of Congress should hear. For the answers I contacted Tony Clement, an elected member of the Canadian Parliament who has been serving as Canada’s President of the Treasury Board since 2011.
First, a little background on Clement will help to put what they’re doing in perspective. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in political science (1983) and in law (1986), Clement worked in the private sector before becoming a central part of Ontario’s “Common Sense Revolution.” (If only Republicans had such simple catchphrases for their political movements.) The main goal of Canada’s Common Sense Revolution was to lower taxes while balancing the budget. Their strategy for achieving this was basically to shrink the size and role of government. Mike Harris, a Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002, led this movement. While Newt Gingrich had his “Contract with America,” Harris, Clement and other Canadian Conservatives repeated the slogan: “Work for Welfare, Scrap the Quota Law [Affirmative Action] and Tax Cuts for Jobs—Common Sense for a Change.”
After Conservatives gained a majority in the Canadian Parliament in 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Clement as the President of the Treasury Board and tasked him with leading a government-wide spending review. In Canada, the President of the Treasury Board is comparable to a company’s chief operating officer. Whereas Canada’s Minister of Finance sets the budget—making him the Santa Claus of the Cabinet—Clement’s position is closer to the Scrooge.
Since being placed in this penny-pinching position, Clement’s goal has been to find ways to contain and reduce government spending. For example, on November 2, 2013, Clement backed a motion at the Conservative Party’s national convention to find ways to get public-sector pay and benefits under control. At the convention he vowed, as the minister responsible for negotiations with the civil service, to “alter the dynamics of collective bargaining as it has been done in this country over the last few decades.”
Now, a central part of the Common Sense Revolution was to do “exactly what I say I will do.” Clement is still following this mantra.
more
Look North GOP -- Canada Is Balancing Its Budget By Politically Outfoxing Liberals - Forbes