ANALYSIS: Are our governments too positive about our economy?

Once upon a time in this country, when Don Drummond spoke, politicians listened.

Drummond was one of the most influential economists in the federal finance department for more than two decades, and was one of finance minister Paul Martin’s greatest assets during the 1990s, when the feds finally balanced the budget (which Martin had said they’d accomplish “come hell or high water”).

He then spent a decade as chief economist for TD Bank, before Premier Dalton McGuinty tasked him with leading one of the most important reviews in Ontario’s history: finding ways the Liberal government could more effectively deliver public services.

But Drummond is deeply concerned that both Parliament and Queen’s Park are sleepwalking into another era of fiscal crisis, and there aren’t nearly enough people seized of that reality. “If we continue along the status quo, or even make mild and not terribly courageous changes, the point after the inflection point is very dire for the country,” he said at a recent Queen’s University event in Toronto. “We will not just go on the slide we’ve been on since 2000. We will go down.”

Then he went on a bit of a rant. […] This is an excerpt. Read the full article at TVO.org.