Queen’s University School of Policy Studies professor and government spending expert Andrew Graham is available to talk about the upcoming federal budget, which will be coming soon as Parliament is set to resume on Monday.

“Now that Stephen Harper has a majority government, he can make the hard decisions necessary to bring down the deficit. You have to do this by taking a balanced approach. You can’t just cut bureaucracy to get to those numbers. You have to look at everything including increasing the cost of some services, getting rid of whole programs, rethinking how governments organize themselves and, yes, in my view, taxes,” says Professor Graham. “Bureaucracy is only a small percentage of what a government spends. I don’t think bureaucracies are inefficient. During the recessions, it was the auto companies and U.S. banks that got the bailouts. That doesn’t mean they can’t get better and save money.”

Professor Graham is an expert on government spending. He has published Canada’s only text on public sector financial management.He served as assistant deputy minister with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (1996-2000).

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