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What may be even worse than the absolute numbers, Ottawa’s inability to get its finances under control had caused a continuing crisis of confidence in government itself. In successive budgets in the mid-1980s, the Mulroney government had printed a chart showing the federal deficit peaking two or three years out but then declining. Budget after budget, the projected decline remained, tantalizingly, in the out years. Eventually, after the mirage never did materialize, the government stopped printing the chart.

At the time of the 1993 election, interest payments on the debt were running at $65.3 billion in 2019 dollars. That translated to fully one-third of federal revenues. One of every three dollars of federal revenue was going to pay interest rather than to buy the goods, services or income support that Canadians regarded as the proper function of government. This shortfall led to another kind of crisis of confidence in government. Because few Canadians perceived any benefit from interest payments on the national debt, the tax-cost of those public services that were being delivered seemed one-third higher than it should have been.

Ten months after that Stornoway dinner, in November 1993, the Liberals were elected on one of the most detailed platforms a Canadian political party had ever published, their famous “Red Book.” Its purpose was to persuade voters the party was ready for power, as had not been the case in 1988, when after a surge in support following the great free trade leaders’ debate of that year, it became clear the Liberals had no plan for government beyond tearing up the just-negotiated Canada-U.S. trade agreement. The Red Book’s other purpose was to establish consensus on difficult policy issues among the various factions of the Liberal party itself. On the contentious question of deficits and debts the compromise reached was to mimic the entry conditions of the European Union’s then year-old Maastricht Treaty and aim for a deficit of three per cent of GDP.