Sometimes I wonder why the main political parties don’t just merge and get it over with. When they appear to agree that deficits will somehow pay for themselves, what difference would it really make?
British Columbia NDP Leader David Eby says his government would bring down the multibillion-dollar deficit year-over-year if elected by growing the economy and cutting what he called wasteful spending.
The province faces a projected deficit of $13.8 billion and Doerkson says Conservatives would trim that by growing the economy, if they win the snap election on Oct. 24.
If they add “… from the heart out” then there no difference from the Liberals either.
In Canada, the federal debt situation is manageable. Canada is among a handful of G20 countries who retain a top credit rating. It’s the provinces who are having trouble balancing a budget.
In the US, the situation is reversed. The federal government is rushing towards fiscal crisis with no obvious plan to deal with it, while most individual states are in solid shape.
Yes, this is why Carney’s budgets are going even more into deficit than the imbecile Trudeau. Because it’s manageable. Maybe, but not by an hopelessly stupid economic moron like Carney.
Actually, the deficit was, as a percent of GDP:
2023-2024: 2.1%
2024-2025: 1.2%
2025-2026: 2.2%
2026-2027: 1.9% (est)
Carney didn’t have much control over the 2025-2026 fiscal year, so there’s no indication here of a sharp rise due to his government. It compares favourably against the US deficit, currently at 5.6%.
The federal government of the U.S. is a much better position economically to handle their debt especially as we see the growth of the U.S. economy versus the pathetic growth the Canadian economy will see going forward if it attaches itself to the shrinking EU economy. Also, Canadians carry the highest per capita household debt to GDP among G7 nations. It is over 100% in Canada and 67% in the U.S.
The Canadian government has pushed its debt onto Canadians with high taxes and so the Canadian consumer is not in a position to grow the economy.
And the funniest thing about provincial debt is it generally the provinces that have been the recipients of equalization that have the highest debt. Grifters, I believe would be the proper descriptor.
Shades of “the budget will balance itself.”
A rising GDP helps a little, but anyone who thinks it’s going to save their fiscal ass is dreaming in technicolor. The US federal government is in a deep hole, and they have no coherent plan for climbing their way out.
Have you not been following their recent desperate manuveurs on the bond market? They’re not doing that because everything’s hunky dory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOU1_VjQv9o
“The federal government of the U.S. is a much better position economically to handle their debt especially as we see the growth of the U.S. economy versus the pathetic growth the Canadian economy will see”
Not just much better…INCREDIBLY better. Being the most powerful country in the world with the richest economy gives them advantages we can only dream of. And we can thank Mark Carney for our own terrible economic performance. Everything that is happening to Canada right now is directly traceable back to him and his moronic decision to use Canadian envy of Americans in general and loathing of Donald Trump in particular to get himself elected PM, and *to hell with* the (very predictable) consequences afterward.
US 30-year treasury bonds have a yield of 5.55%, while Canada’s is 4.25%. Apparently the bond market does not agree with you.
You think like the Trump administration — namely, that raw power solves everything. Except that even they can’t rewrite the laws of economics. I think the US can get out of this, but it’s going to be painful. One of the things that might get sacrified is that GDP growth you put so much trust in, as the US government cuts spending and increases taxes.
If you re-elect me I will cut wasteful spending.
But my favorite is still Modern Monetary Theory.
(1) As long as you don’t create inflation, you can print money to pay for social programs (bridges, roads, hospitals, schools).
(2) Printing money causes inflation.
Substituting (2) into (1) gives …
As long as you don’t print money, you can print money to pay for social programs.
All the parties always claim they will cut the deficit and grow the economy. Here’s the complete list of all those, worldwide, who kept that promise over the last 50 years:
1 – Milei in Argentina
2 – Harper in Canada (except that the provincial governments generally ran up federal entitlement debt and employment killing regulations so on net.. negative the whole way )
3 – Trump in the US. (I know the CBC/NYT cite numbers showing the deficit up, but in reality long term entitlements are headed radically downward, mfg employment is up and accelerating, and current account spending is down by >500 Billion. By 2028 this will be reflected in numbers even the NYT will mention (barely, in para 30 of articles complaining about Trump’s spending).
” … by growing the economy …”
Another one to pitch on the meaningless phrase shit pile. Along with, investing in our future, stewardship, and a host of others.
The private sector grows the economy….if government lets it.
Yearly budget deficits aren’t necessarily a big deal. Overall debt, accrued over the years, is what really matters and no country’s government seems inclined to reduce that. Any yearly budget surplus always seems to disappear into some sort of fiscal black hole the next year.
Nobody who understands the concept of fiscal sanity can get elected in Canada.
Look at the PPC. They favor balanced budgets and smaller government, and on a good day they poll one percent.
At this point all we can do is vote for the ‘conservative’ person with a chance of winning who we hope is lying and who will somehow slow the growth of government.
Pretty sad:
“Is that guy lying to us?”
“Sure hope so!”
Non-academic sez, the deficit of this country is so large that it is essentially unpayable.
Unless of course the government of any shade institutes draconian cut backs on spending.
Not gonna happen, the population has to get much poorer before any changes for the worse.
Billions spent variety of free emigrant schemes needs to stop, the people that go to work every day and pay taxes are not responsible for emigrants well being.
Variety of scams need to stop.
When your agent got here, he got $40 a week that covered room and board and English lessons, in the rear view it was not that bad. After 2 months, it was off to work for some 30 years without taking a penny from the government until pension.
It is typical and complete hypocrisy for the socialista to say what is he going to do when he gets reelected. The socialists/fascists had many years to do something, anything and all they have done is spend and spend and spend.
Now they say that they are gonna fix it.
Heh …. the unfortunate part is that they will get reelected and spend and spend and spend more.
It is way past spending other people’s money, those money are not enough, they are spending future generations money, though they completely ignore that part.
There are ‘experts’ that will tell of schemes and make it look as though things are cool.
Dept is a dept is a dept, the same looking from left to right, bottom to the top or any angle you can think of.
OneBC’s Platform:
Economy & Public Finance
25% tax cuts for every single tax bracket — including corporate
2% off the Provincial Sales Tax (PST)
Approve a pipeline to the Port of Prince Rupert or Kitimat to get Canadian energy to foreign markets
Undertake an audit of British Columbia’s over 176,000 regulations to reduce bureaucratic bloat
Generational Debt
Problems: Credit Downgrades, High Interests Cost, Increases unaffordability
Tax dollars spent on debt servicing is tax dollars not spent on healthcare
Balanced budgets within 4 years, with an aim towards running surplus budgets
A portion of budget surpluses will be put towards debt repayment to quickly reduce the costs of debt servicing in the budget
https://1bc.ca/
Other parties favour the less painful (for them) way of reducing the debt: inflation. In fact, this is the course of all governments as far as I can ascertain. The only way to avoid this is to prevent government from becoming dominant in the economic life of a state.
“https://1bc.ca/”
They have my vote already, if they can field a candidate in my riding. I will *not* be voting for the so-called BC Conservative Party.
Or the Conservative Party of BC, either.. 🙂
It’s called the Uniparty. You can vote for the Harlem Globetrotters or the Washington Generals, but you cannot vote for the referees or owners.
The Province will continue with deficit reduction via spending millions replacing signs with nameplaces in the language of the colonizers.