The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has been, and continues to be, profoundly important to Canadian democracy…. It is virtually unique in its breadth of ideas and its depth of research.
- Ed Broadbent
Issue(s): Alternative budgets, Government finance
Projects & Initiatives: Alternative Federal Budget
February 12, 2003
OTTAWA--Prime Minister Jean Chretien, during both the 1997 and 2000 federal election campaigns, promised that future "fiscal dividends" (the underlying budget surpluses resulting from economic growth and a shrinking debt burden) would be spent in a balanced "50:50" manner. Half would be re-invested in social priorities such as more funding for health care, education, and poverty reduction, and the other half would go jointly to tax cuts and debt reduction.