Alberta in Context

The report argues that the policies and actions of the NDP governments must be understood as the product of two opposing forces: on the one hand, the political and ideological pull of neoliberalism; on the other, the internal dynamics built up over time within each province—the traditions, values, and political alignments that constitute a political culture. [...] The report argues that the policies and actions of the NDP governments examined must be understood as the product of two opposing forces: on the one hand, the political and ideological pull of neoliberalism; on the other, the internal dynamics built up over time within each province—the traditions, values, and political alignments that constitute a political culture (see sidebar on page 4). [...] Over its long history, the NDP has the best record Over its long of balancing the books of any major political party in Canada.27 ”history, the NDP However, comparing the 1965 Report of the Saskatchewan Royal Commission has the best record on Taxation and the 1999 Final Report of the Saskatchewan Personal Income of balancing the Tax Review Committee, Phillip Hansen has shown that the discourse aro [...] In Nova Scotia, the NDP brought in more revenues and spent more than the average (though the sample size of four evidence suggests years is small), but the gap (budget deficit) for non-NDP governments in the the five NDP province was larger than for the NDP government (0.9 per cent). [...] The ratio of RPNs to 100,000 population fell the in first years of the NDP in office, from 340 in 1991 to 334 in 1992–93, levelling out during the remainder of their mandate, only to fall to a low of 28.3 per cent below 1986 levels in 2005 at 194 RPNs per 100,000 people.60 The number of RPNs in Ontario continued to drop precipitously under subsequent governments, and only began to rise again in 20