Paul Martin, the former prime minister of Canada, is clearly embarrassed by any suggestion that his brand of fiscal conservatism has become a model for David Cameron as the Tories covertly address multibillion-pound spending cuts in anticipation of power.
But whether he likes it or not, Martin, a tough – some say ruthless – finance minister before he became prime minister from 2004-06, is seen as a trailblazer of the right for the way he eliminated a crippling C$42bn (£22bn) budget deficit in just four years. And for Canada, read the UK, with its £170bn-plus deficit.
Just as New Labour gleaned valuable lessons from Bill Clinton's slick US presidential campaigns in the 1990s, so leading Conservatives are looking across the Atlantic – beguiled, it seems, by *Martin's no-nonsense approach to balancing a nation's books, whatever the initial social costs in civil service redundancies and deep cuts to welfare and healthcare *programmes.
Yet Martin, now 71, seems genuinely surprised by the interest from the Tories. He dismisses talk of being a *"messiah of the right", saying: "I would contest that." And he insists that he has had no contact with British Conservatives. "I have never met them," he emphasises. "No, I have not."
In truth, Martin, who is the keynote speaker at the Guardian's Public Services Summit next month, seems ideologically on a different wavelength from many British Conservatives. He is fiscally conservative, certainly, yet far more socially liberal, and economically innovative, than many Tories. He says he is the equivalent of a mainstream Democrat in the US.
Martin still bridles at any mention of the recent neocon *rampage not far across the US border from his Montreal home. He insists that withdrawing to small government, driving public services permanently to the "lowest common denominator", is the antithesis of a modern market economy. "No modern country can compete in a long period of time without education and basic research," he snaps. "The idea that you can wipe that out and let laissez-faire rule is not on."
But he maintains: "I am tough in fiscal matters. I do not think any country should put itself in the hands of bankers."
That is why, as minister of finance from 1993 to 2002, he introduced a system of strong bank regulation that became a model for other countries, if not the UK.
So what lessons can we learn from him? "I am not going to tell you Brits what to do," he says. "The two countries are very different. You had a financial crisis and a recession, and let us hope you are putting that behind you. Today, Great Britain is in a very tough situation, but America and other countries are as well." Though not, it seems, Canada.
British Conservatives, nevertheless, seem obsessed with the financial "magic" of Martin because he introduced the biggest reduction in government spending in Canada's history when the centrist Liberals swept to power in 1993. Martin was *heralded as a "maple leaf miracle", although detractors say the reduction of Canada's deficit to zero by 1998 was not totally due to big public spending cuts. Federal spending went down by C$14bn (£8.46bn), but tax revenues shot up by C$32bn. In addition, because Canada devolves funding and responsibility for health, welfare and education to its 10 provinces, local politicians sometimes took the flak for cuts, rather than the party in power.
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Does Canada's former prime minister hold the key to reducing Britain's budget deficit? | Society | The Guardian
