Michael Mendelson was Ontario’s Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance from 1989 to 1990 and Deputy Secretary of the Cabinet from 1990 to 1995.  He is now Senior Scholar at the Caledon Institute of Social Policy.  In this commentary, he compares the experience of Bob Rae’s government in the recession of the early 1990s to that facing the McGuinty government in the recession of 2009.  A shorter version of this commentary appeared in the Toronto Star on March 22, 2009.