Banking on Deception: The Discourse of Fiscal Crisis

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada and Global Spin: Probing the Globalization
Debate.

The Canadian government’s net federal debt rose from $24 billion in
1975 to $541.1 billion in 1995. Thom Workman’s interesting long essay
on the “discourse of fiscal crisis” is strongly undermined by his
refusal to confront such plain facts head-on. At one point, he notes
that his “concern does not lie with the intellectual veracity of the
concerns voiced” by those who have argued that the fiscal crisis is
real and must be dealt with. At the same time, Workman does have some
intriguing things to say about mainstream discussions of Canadian
deficits and debts. There are no doubt several respects in which the
apostles of neoconservatism have used what is real about the fiscal
crisis to advance an ideological agenda that is actually about something
else altogether.

Workman, who teaches political science at the University of New
Brunswick, has written a provocative (though jargon-riddled) book that
should be of interest to those who wish to keep an open mind about what
is happening in Canadian politics today.