 |
| Finance Minister Flaherty |
Jim Flaherty was joking about spending. He said that his staff had recently bought him a big old-fashioned looking rubber stamp which simply says “No”. Call him a cold-hearted capitalist or the saviour of a prosperous and independent Canada — the man does not like debt. “Everybody wants something,” he said a little sadly. “Sooner or later you have to have the courage to say no.” It is the process of hanging onto money that has permitted Canada to turn itself into a fiscally strong example to the world. In the 1990s, Flaherty said, Canadians ponied up 30 cents of every $1 in taxes to pay down the interest on the debt. Now that interest is down to 11 cents out of every dollar. In that respect, Canada is the envy of the western world. Flaherty said today that if everything goes according to plan, the country will have a $3.7-billion surplus in time for the next national election in 2015. And that would pave the way for tax breaks. Making good on earlier pledges to chalk up a surplus, Mr. Flaherty used his economic and fiscal update in Edmonton to issue the most optimistic forecast. Selling off government assets, reigning in department spending and growing tax revenues will all combine to put Ottawa back in the black, finance department figures reveal. Global News
