2 weeks Ago By Chris Nelson, For The Calgary Herald
Mark Carney could have saved us a lot of bother if he’d simply promised everybody $4,000 for voting Liberal. Sure, that would be crass and immoral, but at least it would have been more honest than the drip, drip, drip of those daily promises that have tallied up to a ludicrous $130 billion in additional spending , spread over the next four years, if he manages to remain prime minister on Monday. That’s akin to borrowing $1,000 each year and giving it to every eligible voter, though perhaps our youngsters should get cheques as well: after all, they would be the ones most on the hook when someday we’re faced with paying it back.
Though, if we’re being honest, we can’t pay it back. Not really. The debt the Liberals dumped upon us during the Justin Trudeau years was already far too huge for any such pipe dream.
Now, Carney intends to keep that fire hose of deficit spending wide open. That additional money comes atop the current annual borrowing the Grits are merrily engaged in. In total, over four years, we’ll add about $225 billion in debt to Canada’s balance sheet.
And that’s if things go according to plan. They won’t. They never do when government’s involved.
Oh, but Canada’s in crisis, we’re told. Politicians just love a crisis. They never let one go to waste.
In the past quarter-century alone, we’ve had the Y2K crisis, the War on Terror crisis, the great financial crisis, the COVID crisis and now we have the Donald Trump crisis. Each one demands spending more money we haven’t got. Laughingly, Carney now promises Canada will lead the G7 in future economic growth if elected.
Don’t forget, he was Trudeau’s economic guru for years before jumping into the political ring, and we certainly weren’t doing much leading during that time. Over the past decade, Canada’s per-capita GDP growth sits at a miserly one per cent, according to VisualCapitalist.com .
In comparison, Ireland’s growth rate during those 10 years was 70 per cent, Poland’s 44 per cent, Latvia’s 31 per cent and the U.S.’s 19 per cent.
It is a disgrace, especially considering the money borrowed to achieve this putrid economic outcome. So it’s stunning Canadians would seriously consider giving the Grits under Carney another decade in power. Imagine the mess Canada would be in if that comes to pass: drowning in debt while the rest of the world looks at us in the rear-view mirror.
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