My interview with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in which I ask him, among other things:
- Deep down, in his heart of hearts, do you think Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney is a Liberal?
- You’ve been looking a little out of sorts recently: How’s your health?
- I’m under 50. Have you changed the bargain for my generation and younger? Are we still going to get in our retirement what our parents and grandparents got from Ottawa?
I’m not a huge fan of Mr. Flaherty. I think it is disgraceful that he has left the Bank of Canada’s inflation control target essentially unchanged through two renewal agreements, in 2006 and 2011.
However, I don’t think it is fair to say that he had the biggest deficit of any Finance Minister. A federal deficit should be measured in terms of its share of nominal GDP or in constant dollar terms, deflating it by the GDP deflator. Measured either way I am sure that Mr. Flaherty’s deficit would be lower than the highest deficit of the Trudeau era, even though it came in at about $25 billion. Prices have risen a lot in 30 years.