In Canada : R-E-S-P-E-C-T

THOUSANDS of summer vacationers heading to beautiful Nova Scotia tuck Doers and Dreamers Guide into their carry-on luggage or glove compartments. This guide to province's attractions invites visitors to enjoy the bold highlands, where moose and bald eagles abound, and humpback whales caper in shimmering water . . . where unspoiled wilderness is matched by a cultural bonanza of more than 800 festivals and fairs. Who could have predicted that lush prose of province's Ministry of Tourism would one day be used against its Ministry of Education? One columnist suggested that, if truth in advertising prevailed, promo for Nova Scotia's educational quality of life would be called Least Common Denominator Guide to Nova Scotia: Come to province of big classes, where your children can get less attention than anywhere else, where most disruptive people in classroom can rule, where Art is name of one of teachers and music is heard only on headphones.1 Soon, much more militant rants would be heard across this intensely politicized province. The newly elected Conservative government, led by John Hamm, introduced its first provincial budget in April. It contained $153 million in cuts in public spending. The government had campaigned as fiscally frugal, but, by and large, its message to electorate was that Nova Scotia's financial difficulties were under control. Suddenly, government was insisting that only drastic cuts could save province from bankruptcy. It pointed to a year-end deficit of $767 million and a cumulative of $10.8 billion - approximately $11,000 per citizen. Debt, deficit, and cuts. It's deja vu all over again. During past decade, Canada's provincial and federal governments have moved to reverse decades of budgetary deficits by reducing spending and passing down costs to lower levels of government and to users, otherwise known as citizens. Almost all political reforms that began in early 1990s were predicated on slaying deficit, and those most eager to downsize public sector and reduce role of government seized on deficit as perfect excuse to cut. Privatizing prisons and work-for-welfare no longer needed to be justified as desirable, merely portrayed as inevitable. A new phrase, there is no alternative - TINA for short - brought quick closure to public and private debates. The dangers of and deficit were soon burned into public consciousness. In 1993, a popular and much-publicized documentary television program called W5 profiled debt crisis in New Zealand. The influential host, Eric Malling, claimed that New Zealand had become an economic basket case. His message was delivered skillfully if not entirely accurately: unless Canada repented and quickly renounced its spendthrift ways, it too would hit the wall and find that line of credit had been cut off. One memorable segment of this program alleged that a particularly unlucky baby hippopotamus, born in a New Zealand zoo, was executed because state could no longer afford its keep. This sacrifice to scourge of government profligacy became Canada's unlikely symbol of chickens coming home to roost, so to speak. Metaphorical mix-ups aside, climate had never been better to slay dragon in order to save baby hippos and their kin. Every level of government slashed big-ticket items of education, health care, and social services. TINA ruled. But not everyone bought official version of state of Canada's economy. In 1995, journalist Linda McQuaig wrote Shooting Hippo, a best seller that described cozy relationship between propaganda of public and right-wing political reforms. In it, she argued that hardly anything was what it seemed. The federal government and its well-heeled friends had intentionally fostered deficit hysteria and had actually pressured Wall Street to downgrade Canada's credit rating. …

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