In May 2011 the Barrow Cadbury Fund invited Michael Mendelson to speak at a number of events throughout the UK. Having served as Deputy Minister of the Cabinet Office in Ontario during Canada’s much cited fiscal consolidation of the 1990s, he had a vast wealth of insight and experience to offer. Two years on it’s worth revisiting this film, in which he addresses the question of public spending cuts and sets out some of the major differences between 90s Canada and the situation facing the UK then – and now.

Michael Mendelson is now Senior Scholar at the Caledon Institute of Social Policy.