Canadian politics in the 1990s were characterized by an unwavering focus on the deficit. At the beginning of the decade, it seemed that fiscal deficits were intractable - a fait accompli of Canadian politics - yet by the end of the decade, Ottawa had taken remarkable actions to eliminate its budgetary shortfalls and had successfully eradicated its deficits. How such a radical change of political course came to pass is still not well understood. In...