Ottawa — Almost every federal government department will have its budget pared in one of the first acts of a Paul Martin government, senior aides to the incoming prime minister say.
The spending cuts will be part of an initial burst of 100 days of action that the former finance minister is planning in an effort to draw a clear distinction between his government and that of current Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
"We are going to show immediate action on every important theme that Paul has addressed over the past year," said an adviser.
The goal will be to depict Mr. Martin as an agent of change, not just the head of a Liberal government in its 10th year seeking a fourth consecutive mandate from voters.
Finding money to shorten waiting times for medical procedures, a bold attempt to eradicate native poverty, and an early meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush are also part of the plan.
But Mr. Martin will not have much time to make his case.
He may have just 100 days between the time he is sworn in as prime minister in the New Year and an election call that could come in late April, if Liberal support in opinion polls continues to dwarf that of the opposition parties.
Mr. Martin has previously called for comptrollers of government spending in each department and for a beefed-up role for Treasury Board, the agency that oversees federal spending. But the new idea of trimming department budgets goes far beyond that.
Cutting spending would be an unusual way to begin a pre-election push. Most governing parties shower money on voters in the months before a campaign.
With the federal surplus dwindling, however, Mr. Martin may have little choice but to slash non-essential expenditures if he's going to deliver the improvements he has promised on higher-priority social programs.
His advisers also believe that government austerity is a positive with the electorate — particularly in Western Canada, where Mr. Martin is hoping to boost Liberal support.
"Keeping the administration of government in the black will be an extremely important priority," Public Works Minister Ralph Goodale, a Martin intimate from Saskatchewan, said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
"I think Canadians would expect their government to cut the cloth to fit the new pattern. That could mean there would be need [for] reallocations internally."
Reallocation is usually government-speak for cuts.
Some of the political changes Mr. Martin has promised to make once he assumes office will not cost a cent.
Relaxing party discipline in the House of Commons, so Liberal MPs can vote their consciences, will not threaten to tilt the government into deficit. Neither will other reforms to parliamentary procedure.
Improving Canada-U.S. relations — beginning with a possible meeting between Mr. Martin and Mr. Bush at the Summit of the Americas in Mexico in mid-January — will mark an important new direction in policy, but it won't make much difference to the bottom line.
There are, however, long- and short-term demands on the treasury that will call for new money.
The most pressing need is health care, where the provinces have been clamouring for $2-billion in previously promised federal funding. That promise, which grew out of negotiations between Mr. Chrétien and the premiers, was contingent on a healthy federal surplus of at least $3-billion.
One aide to Mr. Martin suggested the provinces may get their money if they promise to improve access to high-quality health care by reducing waiting lists for medical procedures.
"That is where the pressure is mounting," Mr. Martin said earlier this year.
Other pressures are also mounting on the government purse. The economic slowdown in the United States, a cut in exports due to a soaring Canadian dollar, SARS and the mad cow crisis have combined to hobble growth in the economy and threaten the string of deficit-free years that began with Mr. Martin's 1998 budget.
Mr. Martin has promised to lead a tight-fisted government that lowers taxes and reduces debt, dismissing Mr. Chrétien's advice about freezing tax cuts and boosting social spending.
"Governments must never forget the lessons of prudent fiscal management," the former finance minister said in Montreal last month. "That means always keeping a firm grip on spending."
Mr. Martin went on to say he wants the national debt to fall to a rate unseen since the late 1960s. He's calling for a debt-to-GDP ratio of 25 per cent, down from 71 per cent in 1997 and 40 per cent today.
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