How Ottawa Spends Your Tax Dollars: National Policy and Economic Development 1982

K.J. Charles was Professor of Economics, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay.

The School of Public Administration at Carleton University has been bringing out in recent years an annual collection of essays on federal expenditures and national priorities. The volume under review, the third in this series, is edited by G. Bruce Doern, a professor at the School. A government’s true priorities are revealed not by its pronouncements and declarations, but by the way it decides to spend its tax dollars. The authors of this volume, therefore, turn their searchlights of enquiry on the federal government’s spending plans for economic development programs. From such an investigation emerge some very interesting findings about the true priorities of the government, including the conflicts and contradictions revealed by the government programs, and the directions in which the government is moving. One such finding is that the Trudeau government has given a great deal of its attention to the goal of national unity, and in the pursuit of this goal, it has assigned high priority to economic development in the West in its spending plans. Again, resource development seems to be engaging the attention of the government almost to the exclusion of the manufacturing sector. There is evidence of strong commitment to a “new nationalism” that involves greater federal presence and visibility both in public sector-private sector relations and in federal-provincial relations. Though there is a growing demand for social assistance, the expenditure pattern of the Trudeau government reveals a low priority to social policy, which is subject to decline not only relatively but even absolutely. In contrast, defense and development assistance are slated for substantial increases in the years lying immediately ahead. The book is interestingly written, and contains much valuable information.