NDP balances budgets better than Tories or Liberals

Best black ink record among federal and
provincial parties over the past 25 years

Vancouver - The New Democratic Party has the best record of any party in Canada over the past 25 years for balancing budgets, says federal NDP Leader Jack Layton.

The label of fiscal irresponsibility that is often attached to the NDP by the media and other parties and business critics simply does not stand up to scrutiny, Layton told a weekend meeting of Young New Democrats.

"That's a false accusation," he said.

"If you look at parties in government in Canada, it’s very interesting. The NDP, when in government, has the best record of any political party in terms of running balanced budgets or better. Better than the Liberals.

"The Liberals, 80% of the time they are in power, (have) run deficits in the last generation, the last 25 years. The Tories, when they’re in power, run deficits, I think, 65% of the time — the NDP, when we have been in power, 58% of the time. So we have the best record."

Best provincially

He also said current provincial NDP governments are the most responsible among provincial administrations now holding office, apart from Alberta.

"Our current provincial governments have the best record across the country, with the exception of Alberta, which has a special situation. We have a policy of balanced budgets each and every year. That’s the world I come from – municipal government –  where you have to balance budgets.”

Layton was a Toronto councillor before running for the federal NDP leadership.

Alberta is awash in so much money, generated by record international oil prices, that it is able to balance its books annually. It has also paid off all outstanding debts owed by the province, the only provincial government in Canada to do so.

Alberta has been run by Conservative governments for more than 30 years. Conservative governments elsewhere like to bask in the province's glow but their records are often dismal.

Mulroney, Harris, Eves

For example, Brian Mulroney talked about little else but deficit reduction throughout his nine years (1984-1993) as Canadian prime minister. Yet he almost bankrupted the country, pushing the country's cumulative national debt from less than $200 billion when he took office to nearly $550 billion by the time he left.

The Liberals, whom Mulroney never stopped blaming, actually balanced the books in the mid-1990s and have run surplus budgets federally since then. They have also started paying down the national debt.

In Ontario, Mike Harris and Ernie Eves behaved much like Mulroney, preaching fiscal prudence throughout their disastrous reign, yet saddling Ontarians with a $5.6 billion deficit when they were finally thrown out of office in 2003. NUPGE

More information:
• The dangerous myth of Conservative fiscal discipline

Web posted by NUPGE: 8 December 2004

More News
News Archive
Media releases