Title
The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity: Perspectives from Canada's Provinces and Territories
Abstract
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, Canada appeared to escape the austerity implemented elsewhere, but this was spin hiding the reality. A closer look reveals that the provinces--responsible for delivering essential public and social services such as education and healthcare--shouldered the burden. The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity examines public-sector austerity in the provinces and territories, specifically addressing how austerity was implemented, what forms austerity agendas took (from regressive taxes and new user fees to public-sector layoffs and privatization schemes), and what, if any, political responses resulted. Contributors focus on the period from 2007 to 2015, the global financial crisis and the period of fiscal consolidation that followed, while also providing a longer historical context--austerity is not a new phenomenon. A granular examination of each jurisdiction identifies how changing fiscal conditions have affected the delivery of public services and restructured public finances, highlighting the consequences such changes have had for public-sector workers and users of public services. The first book of its kind in Canada, The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity challenges conventional wisdom by showing that Canada did not escape post-crisis austerity, and that its recovery has been vastly overstated. -- Publisher's description
Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
# of Pages
ix, 422 pages: illustrations
Short Title
The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity
Library Catalog
Open WorldCat
Notes
Contents: Introduction -- The Permanent Unequal Union: Canada’s Provinces and Territories in an Era of Neoliberalism / Bryan Evans and Carlo Fanelli -- BC’s Recurrent Austerity: Victory Unfettered from Success / Heather Whiteside -- Alberta and the Great Recession: Neoliberalism, Conservative Government, and Public Finance / Keith Brownsey -- Active Incrementalism and the Politics of Austerity in the “New Saskatchewan” / Charles W. Smith -- Manitoba: Fiscal Policy and the Public Sector under “Today’s NDP” / David Camfield -- Ontario in an Age of Austerity: Common Sense Reloaded / Bryan Evans and Carlo Fanelli -- From the Bailiffs at Our Doors to the Greek Peril: Twenty Years of Fiscal “Urgency” and Quebec Politics / Peter Graefe and X.H. Rioux Ouimet -- Between “The Rock” and a Hard Place: Fiscal Policy in New Brunswick since 2007 / Jamie Gillies -- Provincial Fiscal Strategies and Public-Sector Management in Nova Scotia / Peter Clancy -- Austerity in the Garden Province of Prince Edward Island / Patricia Conrad -- Newfoundland’s Boom: A Study in the Political Culture of Neoliberalism / Robert C.H. Sweeny -- Nunavut: Conceived in Austerity / Jack Hicks -- Fiscally Conservative Governance without Austerity: Devolution, Aboriginal Self-Government, and the Northwest Territories / Ken Coates and Greg Poelzer -- Fiscal Outlier: Yukon in an Austere Age / Jerald Sabin.
Citation
Evans, B. M., & Fanelli, C. (Eds.). (2018). The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s Provinces and Territories. McGill-Queen’s University Press. https://www.mqup.ca/public-sector-in-an-age-of-austerity--the-products-9780773553354.php