In the Long Run We're All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint

Canadian politics in the 1990s were characterized by an unwavering focus on the deficit. At the beginning of the decade it seemed that fiscal deficits were intractable, a fait accompli of Canadian politics. Yet by the end of the decade, remarkably, Ottawa had eradicated its budgetary shortfalls. How such a radical change of political course came to pass is still not well understood.In the Long Run We're All Dead offers the first comprehensive account of this vital public policy issue. Lewis deftly analyses the history of deficit finance from before Confederation, through Canada's postwar Keynesianism, to the retrenchment of the Mulroney and Chretien years. He illuminates how the political conditions for Ottawa's deficit elimination in the 1990s materialized after more than twenty consecutive years in the red, and how the decline of Canadian Keynesianism has made way for the emergence of politics organized on the basis of balanced budgets.This important book provides scholars and students of Canadian politics with a new framework by which to understand the adoption of government policy, the economic and fiscal legacy of the Mulroney administrations, and the emergence of the new politics of surplus. Essential for anyone needing to be well informed about Canadian politics, political economy, and public policy.