‘We will have to do less of some of the things that we want to do,’ Carney says

[…]

“The upcoming budget will balance the operating deficit in three years by reducing wasteful government spending and doing more with less,” Carney said. “But the fact is, even with such efficiencies and with better management, we will have to do less of some of the things that we want to do, so we can do more of what we must do to build a bigger and better Canada.”

It remains unclear exactly what those sacrifices will be or how they will be distributed.

  • LoveCanada@lemmy.ca
    315·
    1 day ago

    Um, because NOT balancing a budget means massive amounts spent on the national debt. Currently Canada has to pay 1 BILLION A WEEK on interest alone. Thats your and my hard earned tax money being spent just to pay interest, not even paying down the actual debt.

    Now imagine if we had a balanced budge AND we could pay off our debt, like the way any financially responsible, prudent person runs their household. What could 1 BILLION dollars a week buy Canada? Imagine spending that on building roads, hospitals, schools, and properly funding all our social programs. We could offer free university tuition to any Canadian who wants it. Hell, we could actually build up a decent Heritage Fund like Norway has, and provide security for the entire country even with a maniacal partner threatening us.

    When AB paid off its provincial debt years ago under Klein, we still funded our programs and every AB citizen got a $400 cheque because we were in a surplus. Yes, it took austerity, but we weren’t wasting money on interest.

    But instead our federal gov blows our tax money on interest payments. Just not logical.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
      1·
      10 hours ago

      Now imagine if we had a balanced budge AND we could pay off our debt, like the way any financially responsible, prudent person runs their household.

      And now please stop imagining such nonsense and remember that a national budget is in no way comparable to that of a household.

      • LoveCanada@lemmy.ca
        1·
        10 hours ago

        Not directly comparable, but there are shared principles. The main one being “If you put everything on a credit card and just keep making those minimum payments, it eventually catches up with you and something catastrophic happens. If you don’t deal with it your kids will”

        When we’re near the bottom of the barrel for GDP in such a resource rich country, there’s obviously something very wrong.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
      4·
      15 hours ago

      Debt to do what. That’s the key. If we pay 1B/w to finance debt that was used to invest on stuff that is generating 1.1B/w, we have a net positive ROI. It’s the ROI that matters, not the financing cost.

      • LoveCanada@lemmy.ca
        13·
        12 hours ago

        Well, 10 years ago when the Liberals took control our national debt was 692 billion. Today its 1.46 trillion.

        So we’ve doubled the debt under the Liberals and is there ANY metric that says Canada is doing better now with our ROI than 10 years ago? Are we getting a good ROI on doubling our ‘investment’ under their strategy?

        The Liberals honestly believe that we can spend our way to prosperity. With our tax dollars.

        Thats not working.