A new report from the Fraser Institute has ranked B.C. premier Gordon Campbell tops among all Canadian premiers when it comes to fiscal management.
In the report released Monday morning, Campbell scored 89.1 out of 100 for the way he has juggled government spending, taxes, debt and deficits.
Former Manitoba premier Gary Doer ranked second with a score of 78.2. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams ranked third at 71. Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty ranked last overall with a score of 29.7.
Niels Veldhuis, the Fraser Institute’s senior economist said in a release that McGuinty should follow Campbell’s lead and stick to prudent spending increases, lower taxes and surplus budgets.
The premiers’ scores in the report were based on performance in three components: government spending, taxes and debt and deficits.
Campbell’s policy on government spending received a score of 100, with the Fraser Institute saying he has shown restraint and not allowed spending to increase to unsustainable levels.
“Campbell managed the growth in government spending in a relatively sustainable manner and ran a particularly tight fiscal ship during his first term in office,” said Charles Lammam, Fraser Institute’s senior policy analyst.
“At the other end of the spectrum, McGuinty took a spendthrift approach, increasing Ontario’s government spending by more than three times the rate of economic growth. As a result, Ontario’s size of government increased to 20.8 per cent of GDP in 2009/10 from 16.2 per cent in 2003/04.”
Campbell also topped the rankings in the taxes component of the report because of the personal and corporate income tax cuts he implemented shortly after coming to power and in subsequent years.
Campbell came in fifth among Canada’s ten premiers in terms of debt and deficits.
The Fraser Institute noted that while B.C. has averaged a surplus, Campbell reduced the province’s net debt to a lesser extent than four other premiers, including Williams, who scored highest in the debt and deficit category of the report.