The New Democrats' newest finance critic, appropriately enough, has a giant safe in her office. Catherine Fife, recently re-elected in her riding of Kitchener-Waterloo, enjoys a third-floor office she says once belonged to the minister of finance, who had a safe to protect copies of the budget so they wouldn't leak.
That was in an age before the Ministry of Finance moved across the street from the legislature into Macdonald Block.
(Legislative staff couldn't confirm the provenance of the wall safe, telling QP Briefing it may also have once held provincial bonds in a time before global electronic financial markets.)
Fife says she'll use her new role as NDP finance critic ─ replacing defeated Beaches-East York MPP Michael Prue ─ first and foremost to follow the money.
"When you follow the numbers, you follow the real priorities of the government," Fife told QP Briefing.
The elevation to one of the party's most visible critic roles ─ especially as the legislature prepares to pore over the second presentation of the Liberal budget ─ comes as Fife has spent less than two years at the legislature, having won the September 2012 by-election called after the resignation of longtime Tory MPP Elizabeth Witmer so she could head the WSIB.
Fife's win upset Liberal hopes of winning the one-seat majority then-premier Dalton McGuinty needed in the legislature, and the governing party at Queen's Park may have to give up on taking the seat any time soon: Fife carried her seat by 4,000 votes more than her Liberal challenger in the June 12 vote.
Referring to the Liberal budget expected July 14, which Premier Kathleen Wynne has promised will be nearly identical to the one presented on May 1, Fife echoes the criticisms NDP Leader Andrea Horwath made, calling it a "trojan horse" budget.
"This budget was couched in the first year as a really generous budget. It's the cuts that come in the second, third and fourth year. But you're going to see hospitals that will see their budgets frozen. You're going to see teacher negotiations at the end of this August, we'll see what the negative impact on education will be," Fife said.
"My job as finance critic is to peel back the layers and show people what's really contained in that budget."
Fife acknowledged that she has her role, in part, because of the failure of her party's election strategy to preserve seats in the City of Toronto. On election night, the New Democrats lost seats held by Prue, Trinity-Spadina MPP Rosario Marchese, and relative newcomer Jonah Schein, who won the riding of Davenport in 2011.
"Michael Prue is a real loss to our party. I'm going to be reaching out to Michael, he's been a real mentor to me," Fife said. She added that New Democrats have taken some of the lessons of June 12 to heart and will be trying to rebuild bridges.
"I think going forward we have some general consensus, we're going to follow the history of our party, re-engage, and rebuild relationships."
One discussion she's not engaging, at the moment, is the future of her party's leadership. With Horwath staying in the leader's office despite the election's disappointing results ─ the NDP lost three of five seats in Toronto, but made those losses up elsewhere in the province to basically make its decision to force the election a wash. The NDP's popular-vote share increased by one per cent.
Fife says nobody's talking to her about taking the leader's chair if Horwath decides to leave the post before the next election.
"I think Andrea put me in this role because she wants to see me gain experience on the financial front. She put me on the finance committee when I first won the by-election. She knows I like to chase the numbers," she says.

Fife says she’ll follow the money in new role as finance critic

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