|
Chretien | 1995
Referendum |
1998 Separation Ruling |
Nunavut |
Budget Surplus |
Reform Party |
Bloc
As Finance
Minister, Martin quickly went to work and made
the tough decisions that previous Liberal and
Conservative Governments had failed to make. In
1994 Canada had one of the highest deficits compared to
GNP of any of the G7 countries with no relief in sight. He
cut back on transfer payments to the provinces,
reduced spending on many social programs, froze
increases on most others and reformed the CCP
(Canada Pension Plan) in
order to increase pension amounts and increase
revenues, and increased some taxes. The results
were financially spectacular. A yearly $42
Billion deficit was eliminated by the fourth
year with ever increasing budget surpluses after
that.
He then began to
pay down the national debt which
reduced Canada's debt to GDP
ration each year and eventually
led to the best ratio of all G7
countries with a reduction from
about 70% to around 50% by the
late 1990's. Martin managed to
reduce Canada's debt to GDP ration form 70% to about 50%
after just 5 years.
The process which
Martin instituted caused a certain amount of hardship
with many of the social and cultural programs across the
country and a the time of his actions the Liberal's were
ideally suited to make the hard decisions over financial
matters which Martin made. The conservative opposition
had fractured into the Progressive Conservatives and the
Reform Party in the West and the PC and the Bloc in
Quebec. The NDP were unable to present themselves as a
viable alternative during this period fro many reasons.
Many Canadians were
deeply concerned about the budget deficits and were
willing to endure the hardships asked of them in order
to get the finances of the country back on track. This
was also a period of high growth in the North American
marketplace and as a result of the North American
Free trade Agreement, the high tech economic boom and
Martin's actions, the measures he took were even more
effective then was expected.
The fiscal responsibility and success
which Paul Martin put in place and continued on
with as Prime Minister had only recently been reversed
with a return to deficit spending but that can be mainly
attributed to the world economic crisis of 2008/9.
Canada entered that crisis better prepared and in much
more stable shape then almost any other country in the
world. |
