07juin « Going Canadian! »
La Grande-Bretagne se tourne vers le Canada pour trouver des solutions à son déficit. Nous avons donc fait la manchette des journaux britanniques.
La BBC a un beau résumé de la situation. Le Guardian et le Daily Telegraph ont des analyses plus colorées.
Paul Martin était sur place apparemment pour prodiguer ses conseils:
At the summit, Martin acknowledged the pain caused by this approach – he said departments who did not set their own budget cuts had them imposed on them and added that some of the cuts his government made could be seen as both arbitrary and unreasonable. Some departments in Canada faced cuts of more than 50%. But Martin stressed that after 30 years of budget deficit, there was « no other way ».
Le Guardian dénonce l’absence d’une stratégie globale …
David Cameron’s speech this morning on the deficit was long and detailed, but for all that, it was still only half a speech. The prime minister made a strong argument for the reduction of the deficit but made barely any attempt to defend or explain the strategy being employed to do this. As a result, the speech left lots of tough questions unanswered. Here are four of the toughest.
alors que le Telegraph semble aimer l’idée :
« Anyone who thinks the spending review is just about saving money is missing the point. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way that government works. »
Senior Conservatives, led by Mr Osborne, have examined the Canadian model while in opposition and have taken advice from those involved.
The idea of a star chamber – copied from Canada – will transform the way spending rounds are carried out. A committee of around four senior ministers will “test” the claims of each department before their multi-billion pound budgets are agreed.
The second distinctive aspect of the Canadian approach was devolving responsibility for funding savings to officials.
In 1994, the new incoming Liberal Party’s Minister of Finance set up a government spending Programme Review (PR). It examined all areas of Government spending and applied a set of objective criteria. No area was sacrosanct. The PR sought to maximise the participation of civil servants, and process filtered ideas from the departments up through a number of levels: first, a committee of Deputy Ministers chaired by Jocelyne Bourgon which reviewed submissions and coordinated the process (and installed people who were sympathetic to deficit reduction). Next, a group of Ministers chaired by Marcel Massé reviewed the recommendations and crafted final proposals, which were then endorsed by the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Bureaucrats were incentivised through a carrot and stick approach. Deputy Ministers were appraised annually and they received 30pc of their pay on a performance-related basis. If they failed to come up with sensible proposals, the PM threatened that a separate body would impose a top-down 10pc cut across the board.
D’autres laissent entendre que Cameron adopte une approche dogmatique et idéologique:
I’ll also give you this quote, from Paul Martin’s speech to the Guardian public services summit:
« Cuts in government hurt people. If they are made by a government whose only goal is to make the bankers happy, they will never be acceptable. Deficit elimination must be seen to be essential to people’s wellbeing. It will not be supported because of arcane economic theory or simply because business calls for it. »
Pendant ce temps, Danniel Hannan dresse un profil fort élogieux de M. Harper:
I’m delighted that my party has caught up with this blog’s hitherto niche interest in Canadian Toryism. Canada is the only truly successful G8 economy, having determinedly lived within its means. George Osborne is reported to be interested in the record of its previous Liberal government, but the record of the excellent Stephen Harper – perhaps the most Anglophile leader anywhere in the world – merits just as much attention.
Harper is a magnificent fiscal conservative, but he lacks an overall majority, and so has had to rely on Liberal support. The Liberals have insisted on a number of measures that have increased spending, and then turned around and complained about the ensuing deficit. George Osborne should study that experience.
C’est certes intéressant de se voir soudainement édifié en modèle de responsabilité fiscale quoi que quand je regarde notre investissement pour sauver GM et Chrysler, le plan de stimulation économique ou le milliard en sécurité pour le G8 et le G20, je ne suis pas si certain qu’on soit si méritant que cela.
Sinon, j’ai le souvenir d’un article que Paul Wells avait écrit après la formation du premier gouvernement sous la présidence de Nicholas Sarkozy. Encore une fois, l’expérience canadienne durant les années 1990 avait été citée en exemple, mais à moins que je me trompe cela est resté lettre morte. Ce qui semble intéressant, c’est que les gouvernements centristes ou de gauche semblent avoir plus latitude pour couper dans les dépenses publiques puisque c’est plus difficile de les accuser d’être à la solde du patronat ou de la conspiration néolibérale.