Finance Department: NDP Most Fiscally Responsible

OTTAWA – New Democratic Party governments have the best fiscal track-record among all parties, balancing the books more than twice as often than Liberal governments, according to a federal finance department government report.

"This complete contradicts the myth repeated for decades by the Liberals and Conservatives that the NDP is fiscally irresponsible, and shows that the NDP is ready to govern nationally." said Irene Mathyssen. "We can invest in things like affordable housing, reducing student debt burden, innovative approaches to public healthcare, and programs to protect and clean our environment, while pursuing fiscally responsibility."

The report shows that NDP governments have balanced the books 46 per cent of the time. Manitoba’s NDP government has posed surpluses every year it has been in office and Saskatchewan’s NDP government posted 11 consecutive balanced budgets after ending a decade of Conservative mismanagement and corruption.

Despite frequent pronouncements on fiscal responsibility, Liberals have the worst fiscal record overall. Liberal federal, provincial and territorial governments have posted year-over-year budget deficits an astonishing 79 per cent of the time.

Conservative governments have only a slightly better record than the Liberals, logging deficits 65 per cent of the years in which they’ve been in power.

The report issued by the Martin Liberal government’s Department of Finance looks at federal, provincial and territorial accounts over the past 22 years.

Reference: Fiscal Reference Tables, September 2005