After almost a decade of deep-right conservatism, Canada’s political landscape experienced a major shift on 19 October with a dramatic come-from-behind national election win by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party. Trudeau’s Liberals started the 2015 campaign as the third party with only 36 seats and sprinted to a strong majority win with 184 seats – a novel electoral accomplishment in Canada.

Unique, also, was how this was achieved. Trudeau’s commitment to run modest deficits (of $10bn a year for three years) to stimulate the economy through infrastructure spending was a game-changer in the campaign. This was particularly so given aggressive attacks from his political opponents on both the left and right labelling the Liberal leader as fiscally irresponsible.

While Canada is hitting the pause button on austerity, the UK chancellor, is on fast-forward. George Osborne’s 2015 spending review will see a further £20bn cut from public spending to achieve balance by 2019, a move which follows a halving of the deficit over the course of the last parliament. Heavyweight economic commentators are coalescing around the view that with interest rates low and unemployment high it’s the right time to invest in public programs and infrastructure. Even the International Monetary Fund says it’s time to open the taps of government spending. Trudeau caught the wave.

Canada is no stranger to austerity. The Chretien Liberal government in the 1990s saw finance minister Paul Martin wrestle down massive deficits and the size of the federal public service. The hallmark of Martin’s strategy though was the rejection of across-the-board spending cuts in favour of an evaluation of the relative importance of programmes and services within the fiscal plan. Privatisation and contracting out were in the mix but used sparingly. In 2010, Martin, having retired from politics, was consulted by some European leaders and the then Tory opposition in Britain for advice on some non-inflammatory approaches to deficit cutting, but it is unclear whether his messages had much impact. Austerity under the ousted Conservative government led by Stephen Harper came in the form of a smaller role for the state partly by stepping back from major policy spheres such as public pensions, health, aboriginal policy and climate change. Alongside this, deep tax cuts, including spousal income-splitting and new child benefits all targeted towards wealthy Canadians, in combination with the mantra of balanced budgets, had the desired impact of shrinking available revenues in other programme areas.

What can we expect from Trudeau? An increased focus on social policy is expected, with aboriginal issues and income inequality back on the table. There has been an immediate shift from the intensely command-and-control style of the Harper government, starting with much more access for the media and a collaborative approach to working with provincial political leaders. Regional leaders now find themselves invited to join Trudeau in upcoming climate change talks in Paris. This would have been unthinkable under the Harper regime which had directed government tax auditors to target pro-environment charities.

There will be some fresh air for a beleaguered public service too, which has seen its diplomatic corps and federal scientists placed under tight gagging orders. In an open letter to the public services, Trudeau said that unlike Harper, who saw public servants as an adversary, “I see a partner. I believe that in order to have a public service that is valued by Canadians, and a source of pride for its members, it must be valued by its government. That begins with – and necessitates – respecting the labour rights of public servants, and trusting in their ability to provide effective, independent, and professional services for Canadians.”

We can also expect newly found political support for an ambitious, but nascent, public service reform agenda. Reports indicate the creation of several results teams organised around the PM’s key prioritiesand modelled on delivery teams introduced in Ontario in 2003.These involved a balanced relationship between a central monitoring and challenge function, and line ministries, which maintained the lion’s share of responsibility for delivery. It was highly successful in Ontario and is therefore a helpful incubator for the more challenging effort of driving results through a large and highly dispersed, dispirited, but likely hopeful, public service.