With most Canadian governments having delivered their 2009
budgets, globeandmail.com has asked public-policy experts
to assess the best and worst of recession responses. Third in
the series is former Reform Party leader Preston Manning

Canada's federal and provincial governments have all put forward their initial
plans for addressing the current economic downturn, in particular "stimulus
packages" of one kind or another. So what's impressive and what's
disappointing?

At Canada's high levels of taxation, it remains true that a dollar left in the
pocket of a consumer to spend or a business to invest is more "stimulative"
than that dollar in the hands of a politician or a bureaucrat. Tax reductions
are beneficial even if, as some critics claim, "all the taxpayer will do is pay
down debt", because "debt worries" are one of the principal factors currently
undermining consumer and business confidence.

The most disappointing feature of most provincial governments' budgets is
the continuation of the drastic imbalance between education and health-care
spending.

In a recession, the highest priority ought to be given to expenditures on
training and education. This is necessary as an alternative to unemployment
for displaced workers and to insure that Canada emerges from this recession
with the most highly skilled workforce in the world. So why is a province like
Ontario \u2014 with the largest workforce in the country - still spending almost 40
per cent of its budget on health care and only 13 per cent on education?

Of course the real problem is that in order to shift public dollars from health
care to education we would have to reform health-care financing. This would
require provincial and federal leadership to create a two track system, public
and private, for health care insurance, financing, and delivery \u2014 replacing
several billions per year of public health-care dollars with private dollars
while still preserving universal coverage for all citizens.