Be­fore he was ap­point­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Dave Tan­coo was a large­ly un­known quan­ti­ty. The coun­try, as a whole, hadn’t quite ex­pe­ri­enced his po­lit­i­cal style or acu­men as an econ­o­mist.

Now, with the re­cent land­mark pre­sen­ta­tion of his first bud­get, Tan­coo has risen to the fore as a thor­ough­bred Fi­nance Min­is­ter. He spoke with au­thor­i­ty, dis­played cre­ativ­i­ty in mea­sur­ing up to the na­tion’s fis­cal chal­lenges and ini­ti­at­ed a new di­rec­tion for the coun­try’s econ­o­my. Cit­i­zens have con­fi­dence he is more than equal to the task. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is com­pli­ment­ed on her choice. Tan­coo has ar­rived.

And, as promised, he has placed di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as cen­tral to his eco­nom­ic man­age­ment. I great­ly wel­come this. For ten years, I preached “di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion for new for­eign earn­ings” as in­dis­pens­able to this na­tion’s sal­va­tion.