says the head of the Business Council of Canada

Now that we've gotten that out of the way; bullshit. Governments have spent money for a long time. This dude probably wants to go back to the days before income tax where you could put whatever you want in a sausage, and staff the plant with indentured 9-year-olds. I'm not even sure if spending got noticeably lower in the trickle-down era, because the Cold War was raging at the same time.