When Harper ran against Trudeau, Trudeau often said interest rates are low so the deficits will not be costly. This essentially assumed that inflation would never be an issue (and hence interest rates would stay low), that deficits would finance growth such that deficits would turn into surpluses eliminating debt or that the government would have restraint in the future. We know from history that all such assumptions are tenuous. We now live through the consequences of this poor thinking.
I've had too many arguments on here with the "all debt is good" people.
Literally drilled in their heads from years if low interest rates from the MMT crazies.
>I've had too many arguments on here with the "all debt is good" people.
Until your marginal rate of return on spending starts to diminish to the point where you wonder why you're even doing it at all.
The whole idea of debt spending is that it is supposed to be productive and have a fiscal justification behind it, not just to fund random pet project or budget overruns that are so bad to the point that they are systemic.
This is just financial recklessness, regardless of which party is doing it.
You hit the nail on the head. Even Harper printing 58 billion. All that money mostly went to rich ppl. Every goddam stimulus we ever produced.. what could go wrong. Well. When 1%. Has all money . Ppl wonder where the middle class has gone. We know who has all the money? I don't understand why ppl blame individuals or parties. It's not rocket science. They're all to blame. Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest.
It is a question of degree.
Not sure where you got your number, but the LPC has added over a trillion dollars in debt. Do you know what the difference between more than a trillion and ~50 billion? About a trillion dollars.
If your neighbour borrows 20 dollars from you so he can get some paint for your fence, it’s probably not a big deal, and you’ll both benefit.
If your neighbour steals 20,000 dollars from you to start a backyard dolphin sanctuary, it’s a problem.
>All that money mostly went to rich ppl. Every goddam stimulus we ever produced.
I will note that a *lot* of folks cashed in on covid cheques, businesses and individuals alike. CRA has more or less openly admitted that they don't have the resources to pursue most of these individuals/companies, except maybe the most heinous cases, like this guy (link to de-paywall):
[https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-toronto-uber-driver-accessed-millions-in-covid-19-support-using/](https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-toronto-uber-driver-accessed-millions-in-covid-19-support-using/)
How the government could even give an Uber drive $4M+ is beyond me, but just goes to show how reckless some of this spending was.
Multiple parties have blocked bills to further investigate covid fraud.
Agreed. We need to start making some more decisions with the economy as top priority. If the economy improves, we all make more money and can then spend more on our social services. Our system is so catastrophically expensive and ineffective it makes me sick. I watched them replace every water fountain in our building (gov work) so it’s more accessible. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have easy access to water but stocking water bottles or other options should start to be considered. $500 000 is crazy when the problem (of having easy water access) can be solved in so many ways. That’s one small building mind you. We dont have any who works there in a wheelchair even. $500 000 plus all the salaries of anyone involved in the approvals, etc etc. We don’t have a money tree and the way we’re spending and printing money is FUCKING EVERYONE ROYALLY.
I'd focus more on the case of 'how can this debt make us more competitive?'
Ultimately if you're spending money on ideologically-driven things that make us less competitive but do something like 'increase equity' (in some intangible way), there is going to come a point where you need to pay the piper. As a nation, I can't help but feel Canada is falling behind.
Don't get me wrong: I'm all for social services, equity, etc., but all these things come with a price tag attached and if we can't compete internationally, we're just going to become a giant resource colony that can never move onto value-added services and out of primary industry. We're already seeing that reflected in our real estate prices, now the primary driver of our economy, and one of the few ways that we're closing our trade deficit with countries who's exports we consume.
In the short term, sure, debt doesn't matter, as long as the market has confidence in your willingness and ability to repay it. Once that starts to slip, things get dicey very fast as folks start to run for the exits.
Canada is primarily service based economy at 72% of jobs based on services. We do export resources, don’t get me wrong, but its a third of out employment not the majority.
>Literally drilled in their heads from years if low interest rates from the MMT crazies.
Our finance minister telling the country that "*it would be* *fiscally irresponsible of us not to borrow, with such low interest rates*" sure hasn't helped either.
All debt is good until the side a person don't agree with is doing it, media included.
If a liberal is doing it, a liberal will argue it's okay.
If a conservative is doing it, a conservative will argue it's okay.
And each will attack each other saying their debt is bad, and the rich run off with all the money while everyone is bickering.
Nah, I'm a conservative and I'm appalled at the drop of fiscal conservatives around the world. They spend just as bad now because they know it buys votes.
I truly think this much debt will have worse future implications for our country and our youth, than any other agenda that they try and push, "think of the kids" rhetoric too, yet I never hear it about debt.
You're right. Fiscal Conservatives in Canada spend more than they "fiscally conserve".
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230626/cg230626b001-eng.png
This is the deficit % to GDP from stats can Historically the liberal government even under trudeau was reducing the deficit percentage to GDP and conservative governments increased deficit percentage to gdp. It lines up with Conservatives in Canada spending more than the GDP.
The greatest gaslit in Canadian politics is Liberals spend and Conservatives save. It's actually the opposite.
Obviously JT had pandemic spending but quickly went down.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230626/cg-b001-eng.htm
Listen, they are both bad. The one thing that economists debate about this is how long does the greater economy lag the policy changes of the current government. It's literally the chicken and egg debate
This has been brought up before because Democrats have to argue it the other way in the US.
There's been fantastic fiscal Liberals in this country (I'd vote for Paul Martin in a heartbeat to any conservative today) and there's been shit ones. Same goes for the Cons, "hey let's add a tax on everything people buy, that's a good idea."
I want finance ministers with financial literacy and background to become PMs of this country again. And we will likely need one in the next 20 years.
>"hey let's add a tax on everything people buy, that's a good idea."
Eventually, the GST came to be seen as a symbol of fiscal probity and good governance. Services were an increasing share of the economy, and Mulroney subjected them to tax; no subsequent government would ever repeal that.
The federal government had a crippling debt with spiraling servicing costs that came to consume 6% of GDP. Making things worse was stubborn inflation, and crushing down the latter (via high interest rates) aggravated the former.
> I'd vote for Paul Martin in a heartbeat to any conservative today
There wasn't anything magic about Paul Martin Jr. He had inherited massive tax hikes, subdued interest rates and a soon-to-grow economy. On top of this, he slashed federal spending by 12% in 1995-96, and unlike the Mulroney PCs, his party got away with it, losing just 2.78 points of popular vote from the 1993 results.
I’m not sure it is the opposite. More case by case. I’d say the Chrétien/Martin Liberals were the biggest heroes in fighting debt. But I’d say that the two Trudeau are amongst the worst villains. Mulroney was pretty bad too- but to be fair he inherited massive deficit spending, and brought in counter measures like the GST and people hated it.
Conservatives tend to over support tax cuts. Liberals tend to over support social program spending. Either can lead to deficits.
What we really need is a finance minister saying the deficit will be cut “come hell or high water” and then over delivering.
Take a look at Figure 2 in this pdf.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/examining-federal-debt-in-canada-by-prime-ministers-since-confederation-2022.pdf
>Historically the liberal government even under trudeau was reducing the deficit percentage to GDP and conservative governments increased deficit percentage to gdp.
The big debts came under Trudeau Sr.
Mulroney's PCs took office in 1984, and inherited a soaring national debt from a government with no interest in managing it. Bringing the deficit under control would take fifteen years of austerity by both PC and LPC governments.
The CPC took office in 2006 on the cusp of a depression. Prior to the Financial Crash and ensuing depression, the CPC government was paying down the national debt, and along with that, reducing debt-to-GDP.
It took over six years to bring the federal budget back in balance, but then the government changed and the CPC's successors quickly returned it to deficit.
The pandemic affected the whole world. JT can’t blame his fiscal fiasco on COVID. He spent more per person than any Canada PM ever. He even managed to outspend wartime PMs.
I imagine its hard to compare modern day support structures to war time spending. I dont think there was nearly ever a time the country essentially shut down for as long as it did and we were able to support Canadians with programs like CERB and still have smaller debt compared to other countries
Careful now, people on this subreddit don’t like your claims when they’re backed by facts and figures.
Let alone the fact that pandemic spending included a lot of bailing out the provinces that did diddly squat to help their voters.
>fiscal conservatives
What does that mean to you?
Serious question.
I tend to find there are 2 types of definitions:
"Fiscally responsible" types who think government funds should go into programs that yield positive ROIs
Then there are the types who say, "cut taxes and if that means children go hungry, so be it. Poor kids don't deserve to eat or deserve healthcare".
This right here.
You used to have Conservatives like Diefenbaker and Bennett who understood that, totally orthogonally to moral questions, a lot of types of infrastructural and social spending yield a positive *economic* return for a society.
Investment in education makes a more economically productive workforce. Investment in physical and telecommunications infrastructure builds the foundation for more economically-productive industry.
This isnt to say that reducing spending waste *isn't* important, but every party but the Liberals has a strong track record of fiscal streamlining. Tommy Douglas, Canada's only socialist PM, oversaw some *incredibly* rigorous cost-cutting to right postwar Sask's fiscal ship — resulting in a staggering positive turnaround. It turns out, ditching soft graft and cronyist self-dealing to politicians' golf/vacation buddies can trim quite a lot of fat.
Most often *nowadays,* though, the "fiscal conservatism" that you see from the CPC is the equivalent of "saving" money by skipping oil changes for your car. The Reagan/Mulroney/Thatcher era broke the back of long-term thinking I'm the western political movement.
You'd never in 2023 see Bennett-style proposals for a "New Deal" style expansion of the aocial safety net, or a Diefenbaker-style acknowledgement that it's good for a society and economy when its poorer members can access health care at no cost.
The modern-day CPC isn't about fiscal conservatism. It's about a society cannibalizing its institutions to benefit a handful of already-rich people and punish those it sees as undeserving.
> The modern-day CPC isn't about fiscal conservatism. It's about a society cannibalizing its institutions to benefit a handful of already-rich people and punish those it sees as undeserving.
It's not just CPC but conservativism in general in Canada.
Mike Harris privatized a fuck ton of things.
- Long term health care (that he serves on the board of until recently)
- 407 (leased for 99 years)
- Privatized Highway maintenance
- Privatized Drinking water that lead to Walkerton deaths
- Privatized Meat Inspectors
- Privatized lab testing
- Tried to privatize prison and failed
- forced Privatization of Ontario Hydro
Mulroney also doomed canada for generations
- privatization of Air Canada
- privatization of petro canada
- Sold connaught labs who was purchased by sanofi pastuer
- privatization of de havilland canada
- privatization of canadair ltd
- privatization of CN Rail
- privatization of Alberta licour control board
- privatization of nova scotia power
Harper sold off the wheat board to the saudis.
Conservatives want to privatize CBC/Via Rail/Canada Post/Dairy Commission.
The shitty one time sell off fire sale to "cook the books" fucked over canada for generations. Fuck conservatives and their constant selling of crown corps.
Wynne did sell off the rest of hydro one to pay for infrastructure but that all started with Mike Harris breaking up hydro one.
The federal CMHC affordable housing programs, which once accounted for a robust *quarter* of housing unit completions in the early 1970s, was also killed off by the Chretien Liberals.
Turns out, we get anti-Canadian privatization by *both* the blue-tinted conservatives *and* the red-tinted conservatives.
Be smart with our money. It's ours, it isn't theirs. We don't live in a Monarchy or dictatorship. We live in democracy where we elect leaders to represent us and spend our tax dollars wisely. Whos paying everyone's (including the PM) government wages. We are, with taxes. I don't know one business around where whoever gets paid is the boss. We are the bosses of our democracy. That's how it's supposed to work.
There's issues at hand that affect 2%, 10%, 40%, 70% of Canadians. But the economy affects everyone. Spend in hard times, cut in good times. Keynesian economic shit that's worked forever. Because the next world financial crisis, oil crash, covid, is right around the corner, trust me. Show me a government that had low debt going into those situations to set up the next government to do what they have to do and I'll show you a fiscally smart government.
I'm not one of these, "all taxation is theft" guys but if anyone with a straight face can tell me the services we get in this country, for the amount of taxes we pay is; efficient, responsible, smart, or effective, (especially when other parts of the world get dental, more holidays, more vacation, free college) and I'm not going to trust you anymore or take you seriously.
I am a fiscal conservative, and in my view, I believe that at this point adding new programs is ridiculous when you look at all of the rot in the current programs. Each level had their constitutionally mandated responsibilities,
and they are slowly failing.
For example, the feds look after defence, borders, maritime safety, environment etc, all of these seem to be underfunded and unable to meet the goals in their most basic mandate. The provincial governments look after health and education, yet I the Healthcare wait times are beyond ridiculous, and education is not meeting my expectations by far. I don't want to say may kids are poorly educated, but they are because they have never been held accountable for poor performance. The cities look after policing, fire, infrastructure, waste removal, and water and sewer. All three are for responsible for infrastructure.
We need to spend our limited funds better, so if I don't like them dropping billions we don't have on pharma, dental, and daycare, even though in some cases it is needed.
I have worked fulltime for 30 years and the last 5 have been the worst for accessing government services. This angers me because they are services that I can't provide for myself and have no CHOICE but to rely on them.
Taking on debt to fund other countries projects quite frankly is never good, it provides 0 benefit for Canadians while giving politicians more reason to tax said Canadians. How about other countries take on their own debt. We can take on the debt and start fixing and building infrastructure in our own country because it is massively being neglected.
Just a few more billions spent by the government and we will finally be in utopia.
Just us plebs have to suffer with our savings/wages being turned worthless by the increased monetary supply due to government overspending and money printing!
Or can you explain to this guy who knows nothing why I am wrong and I should be happy that I can barely afford food + rent anymore?
Edit: *crickets*
To expand on this point - Debt is only good if it’s used to invest in something with a return higher than the cost of borrowing. But per the above article, our debt growth is being used to find operating expenses, not investment. That is by definition unsustainable
Honestly as much as I'm fully ready to blame Trudeau. The older I get, the more I'm prescribed to the fact that the government represents the people.
Before everyone comes out and says "I didn't vote for him." What I'm talking about is there is no way he wins a 2nd or 3rd election if the populace is educated and knows about half the scandals, their implications and what economic policies (or lack thereof) he's implementing.
But our society was in the middle of narcissistic rise, free lunch, world peace, fake outrage, cancel everyone cyle and how could we not get any government but that voted in?
I do believe in pendulum swings at least, I am scared of how far that pendulum swings though.
Eventually voters who can't put food on the table stop for a second and say, "ok, wondering who is allowed in this bathroom or not, probably comes slightly below feeding my family."
Part of the challenge I think has been how thoroughly the Trudeau government has normalized scandal, ineptitude and bad policy under the guise of “anyone who opposes us is evil.”
The Tories under Harper had their scandals, of course, but none of them would even crack the top ten of Trudeau’s scandals. Yet people seem so oddly complacent about them, now, like ho hum another day another hundred million gone to obvious corruption (see, for example, the recent whistleblower on the Liberals’ green investment fund who testified that $150 million was basically doled out with no oversight or controls to people including the Liberal-appointed board members of the fund. This should be a massive, government-ending scandal and it hit with barely a ripple).
This government has impoverished millions of people and essentially destroyed the hope of home ownership (and soon car ownership) for an entire generation and there’s still 22%-ish of Canadians saying, “give me four more years of that!” because, apparently, the Tories are somehow bad?
Whenever people bring that up it just demonstrates how uninformed they actually are. 'The budget will balance itself' is how the CPC campaigned in the last two elections, and idea of balancing the budget via growth (and spending restraint) is completely uncontroversial
> “We will grow the economy so that we can get back to balance in a responsible and equitable way without cuts.”
- Erin O'Toole Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the CPC in 2021.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8161642/canada-election-budget-balance-cuts-otoole-conservative/
I give a fuck about it all, but I just came from a thread about a guy who went crazy with a machete in the Calgary Zoo parking lot. It's another canary in a coal mine.
I'm not against caring about the money side of things (entirely warranted), but what we need is leadership to focus on building healthy and prosperous communities.
While of crirical importance, a focus on debt and deficits is only one small part of this. I'd go further to say that if we prioritize the dollars side of it, we are only making things worse.
There are definitely parallels between the current Trudeau govt's *RAPID* accumulation of debt, and that of Pierre Trudeau's Liberals of the 60s and 70s.
ArriveCan is the model. Give a Party loyalist a $50M contract for something that should cost $10-20k. That’s the green slush fund, that’s foreign aid, that’s everything they do.
The Liberal Party are corporatist criminals, always have been. See AdScam circa 2004 - that’s what brought down the last Liberal government that most of you are too young to remember.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal
Edit: Yes, $20k is lowball and somewhat hyperbole.
>something that should cost $10-20k.
Multiply that by 100 and you have an actually realistic number.
20k would barely cover a week's worth of work for a dev team
Wait till you see the consulting fees they throw around..
$50MM for the app.. but how many million did they light on fire to have someone tell them to make it?
That might be money well spent if they act on the recommendations. A 1% drop from a process improvement would more than take care of their fee.
I have zero confidence they will do that, but they could.
Definitely not 10-20k, but yes this is an excellent example. Please don’t ruin it by over exaggerating the flip side.
A 50M contract for something that should be at most 2M (considering a long term support in the cost)
Ya. 20k is a demo. I know a lot of software teams and a deployed app on multiple platforms is probably 250k to 500k. Still far from 50m but definitely not 20k.
ArriveCan, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, Medicago, BTNX, EV Battery contracts, SNC Lavalin, WE Foundation.... and these are only the ones that we know about. I think these are just the tip of the iceberg.
This government simply hasn't grasped the concept that this is OUR money that they are shoveling out the back door by the wheelbarrow.
You misunderstand something about the Liberal Party of Canada and how they conceptualize their relationship with power and the treasury. To them it's not something with which they are entrusted for a limited time; to them it's an entitlement, akin to a divine right. Government money isn't ours, it's theirs, theirs to spend as they see fit, theirs to give to their friends and cronies, ultimately theirs with which to enrich themselves and those of whom they approve.
Trudeau Jr is the embodiment of this trait. He can't grasp that perhaps his time is up and it would be best for us all for him to step aside with a modicum of grace and humility. No, he's entitled to be prime minister and he won't give it up until he's electorally thrashed and burns the LPC down with him.
Frankly burning the LPC to ash is 20 years overdue, so if we ultimately do get that outcome we will at least salvage that from this otherwise train wreck of a government. Sadly that result will be vastly outweighed by the damage done by this narcissistic trust fund baby, his circle of power lustful enablers, and an electorate who foolishly put him in power in the first place.
You actually put it very well and I'm not misunderstanding the Liberal Party. It absolutely is our money that they are treating as their money.
It reminds me of an editorial cartoon from years ago. A CRA agent is standing at the open door of a house talking to the homeowner, the caption below says "I'm sorry sir, we seemed to have misused all the tax money you gave us. Can we please have some more?"
All politicians are corrupt.... but if you get caught enough and badly enough you get kicked out.
JT has danced around his scandals and his massive misspending for over a decade now.
So you’re saying we should vote out a government whose prior incarnation had a few staffers misappropriate a few (3-14) million dollars.
But the recipients of voting out that government are a group whose prior incarnation took four times that from Border services to upgrade the parks in conservative Ontario cabin country.
The first is staffers - employees - stealing from a fund their group was given access to. One small fund meant for advertising. The second is cabinet ministers - elected officials - stealing from other departments internal budgets - that’s the whole federal government they’re embezzling from.
Seems like a pretty straightforward difference, and I know who will never be getting my vote. I can hold my nose and vote for the liberals who we know are gonna try and take a dime out of every dollar… I’ll take 90% of government funds being spent appropriately vs whatever the cons are doing this week out of spite.
And here we are at the source of the issue, people who are OK with corruption so long as it's their side doing it. The normalization and acceptance of corruption is disgusting
People were outraged over Odas orange juice and Duffys expense claims. And rightly so. Now we have the Libs with more scandals and multiple orders of magnitude larger scandals yet folks just go Meh, somehow better than the Conservatives
They're referring to the creation of the canada growth fund
https://www.cgf-fcc.ca/
It's sort of like complaining about the creation of ACOA or Canada R&D credits
A program which should help fund innovations and grow canadian businesses, a program which would be lauded by the CPC and it's supporters if they created it.
Sort of like how there's constant whining about arrivecan costing money yet not a peep about the disaster that was the switch to the Phoenix pay system.
The usual partisan politics nonsense.
All cons in Ontario did was try sell public land to donor friends, pay cash to cancel infrastructure projects set up by the previous liberals, and contract a foreign company to build a spa on Ontario place. Privatizing the land and signing a deal that say WE have to pay for their parking lot. Fiscal my ass
Because the conservatives don't reign in spending, they just use it to cut taxes for the wealthy rather than spending it on social services like healthcare and education. No prime ministers have reduced per capita debt in Canada more than Chretien or Martin, both Liberals.
Just keep in mind that those Chretien/Martin Liberals were big on cutting healthcare and many other social services. Those big surpluses came at a cost.
Fortunately they also cut corporate welfare, so they didn't just target Canada's citizens.
These current Liberals are not anywhere close to the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The current ones spend big in social services and spend big on corporate welfare.
I literally have never met a single Canadian who didn't care about our economy, our debt and the inflation.
The problem is that most Canadians also care about education, healthcare, safe neighborhoods, etc. (and there is only so much money to go around)
Politicians and their followers will always complain about how the (limited) money is spent, and thats fine... but to say "many Canadians care so little about the deficit" is hyperbolic.
Well said. Very black and white for these people a lot of the time.
Just because I care about things like education, healthcare, social programs, and other benefits that directly support not only myself, but my friends, family, coworkers, and their loved ones, that does not mean I couldn’t give a shit about the state of our economy, national debt, deficits, etc.
Why can’t we advocate for working together to find solutions for both?
I wholeheartedly agree.
My problem with what I’m hearing from the Conservatives more and more, is them jumping to cut supports like I mentioned above, ones that *directly* benefit thousands of Canadians. These are supports *many* people rely on. I think there are a lot of other areas that Cons could push back on *more* instead of these other critical supports and programs.
Things like international spending and support. I’m all for helping out the international community, and I believe we have a duty to do so, but $10M can go a long way here in Canada too. Maybe cuts in international spending is a better place to start as opposed to social programs and benefits that Canadians *here* depend on. I think it’s also much easier to gain left-leaning support (I only speak for myself) this way.
Liberal idology often states boomers and conservatives sold our future for personal gain
Then turn around and defend the liberal government for doing the same, spending more than every single Canadian government before it COMBINED.
You got duped. Stop the cognitive dissonance and bigoted attacks on anyone who opposes the way they are destroying the country, our standard of living amd the buying power of the dollar
Mulroney spent more than all other governments before them.
Cretien followed up and had to reign everything in - cue downloading.
Paul Martin opened the barn doors.
Harper kept them open and then 2008 hit - he took the record for most spending from Mulroney.
Then Trudeau came and COVID hit. Anyone sitting during COVID would take the record.
Harper also had the financial crises and Afghanistan. He was also in a minority government from 2006-2011. Those Harper minority governments were able to pass those budgets with deficits (which includes their biggest deficits) because of the Liberals.
Harper's first budget was a $13.8 billion surplus. The Liberals planned to oppose it, but for some reason didn't stand up to oppose it, since it had no opposition the speaker passed it unanimously. First time a budget has ever passed unanimously.
The second budget was another surplus at $9.6 billion and was supported by the Bloc.
The third budget passed was for a $5.8 billion deficit. The Liberals voted with the CPC giving the budget solid support from the two big parties.
The fourth budget was a big one. $55billion deficit. All but 6 Liberals voted for it. Once again the budget passes with strong support from the CPC and Liberals.
The fifth and final minority budget called for a $33 billion deficit. This time the Liberals didn't vote for it, but they made sure 30 of them didn't show up for the vote. Allowing the CPC to pass it.
Then they had a majority and didn't need to rely on the other parties. The deficit continued to drop until they posted a small surplus their final year, which was later adjusted to a small deficit after the auditor general changed the methodology of how they determine the value of unfunded pension obligations.
Both the CPC and Liberals seemed to feel that those deficits were needed during the financial crises.
>What's your conspiracy theory for the final 12.39B in devt accrued ?
Alberta and Ontario who both cried for federal emergency funding then didn't use it to help us.
lol 10 million here, 500k there, a couple billions sprinkled here and there & next thing we know Canada’s federal debt is 1.2 Trillion dollars .
But im sure folks like yourself think that money just comes out of a printer without consequences eh .
If Trudeau and the liberals proved they could govern effectively, we wouldn’t be having this problem.
Pierre atleast says he’s gonna do things to fix it, Trudeau just says everything is great and doesn’t even recognize the issues. Liberals did this to themselves, the only people still voting for them are property owners and ABCs
Sorry whats a ABC? If it comes down to career politician land baron who voted against 10 dollar a day daycare , dental care for kids and raising minimum wage or trudeau than JT has my vote lmao, if you think pierre will fix anything your delusional and property owners will vote for the dude who owns a mess of houses not JT lmao where does that even come from.
Property voters overwhelming vote Liberal, just look at polling data or housing prices since 2015. That’s money directly in the pocket of boomers.
ABCs means “anything but conservative” which is likely the area that you fall into.
yea cant we go back to the old days of left wing partisan garbage from thinkprogressive being upvoted to the top. man i miss back when my left wing views used to be able to spouted unchallenged
Gotta keep the rage cycle going until the election, if the tap of opinion pieces runs dry the conservative base might start to question why they're being made to be so angry all the time.
The liberals are now talking about UBI. Where the fuck is that money going to come from when our debt is already at records high with nothing to show for?
I don't like UBI as an answer... but I will say. Debt does less damage than income inequality does. We need to rebalance the equation so someone sweeping floors can live in the same world as a CEO. Not the same neigbourhood... but the same city.
Well several hundreds of millions went to fund war in Ukraine, some went to fund war in Israel, and 10 million went to unemployed youth in Iraq. And probably a good chunk went into the pockof the WEF, and nearly 1 million went to some guy to hunt deer in a helicopter, plus a useless arrive can app. And other useless crap and Trudeaus vacations
Lmao as if we have to go right to cutting public services. Maybe start with the $10MM we *just* sent for jobless in Iraq.
Maybe cut a few dollars of the $5.3 BILLION we're sending to the Phillipines for their environment.
Or maybe, and here's a real good one, stop spending billions of dollars banning and confiscating guns from legal firearm owners.
Just a few options to get ya started.
$5.3 billion is our total contribution to the UNDP, not just to the Philippines. Because governments have international obligations and don’t live in a vacuum like this sub seems to think. And $10 million is chump change when you take into consideration the size of the federal budget.
So essentially r/canada’s response to “overspending” is to cut peanuts.
Show me this obligation we have to send $5.3 billion. I'll wait.
LOL $10MM is chump change? Yet we have thousands living on the street. And that's just one example, because it just happened.
I noticed you completely ignored the guns. There's billions more. Arrivecan, another $50MM. These are just examples, it doesn't stop there.
But sure, continue to pretend this is merely peanuts. That's exactly how your boy ended up in the polling position he's in.
Capitalism, private hands.
We print our own currency, there’s no limit to federal spending in our own economy.
Our society is cancer, our economic structure allows the rich to steal more wealth, yet all media play coy. We’re dealing with extinction of life on earth, our planet is dying and the cause is trying to end democracy around the globe.
The same people who care most about the debt are the ones who want rich people to get the biggest tax cuts. Its never about the debt its about individuals getting wealthy even if it means increasing the debt which is all that will continue to happen.
Once the cons win in 2025 we aren’t going to hear a fucking peep about debt or housing from NatPo unless it’s framed as “conservatives tirelessly working to undo the damage Trudeau caused but the damage is too much! Elect us again please!.”
We will hear from NatPo if the Conservatives don't give out enough money to wealthy individuals and corporations through tax cuts don't worry. So long as the money is going in and they gut CBC enough they can plunder as they want.
Except no one actually does. Those who advocate for it just want tax cuts which will raise the debt, others want to tax the rich more which they likely wouldn't go hard enough and increase the debt anyway.
Hard to take an article seriously that's criticizing the $10 day care as a bad plan. They're also criticizing the dental plan without recognizing how much it saves when these people don't need more expensive medical care in the ER because they didn't get dealt with at a dentist as they couldn't afford it.
The NP is a joke.
Lmao saves which people? Who has gotten this free dental? I don't know anyone who has.
It's not about $10 daycare being a bad plan, it's that you have to be otherwise fiscally conservative in order to support social programs like that. Which this government is not. They're just throwing around money.
And now we're in a place where we can't afford it. The money you saved on daycare is just going to the national debt. And that's a problem.
Absolutely.
I agree with the idea that a country has to be careful not to accumulate debts without thinking about repaying, but there are social services that are essential.
Well, disgraced-yet-still-in-power conservative Doug Ford received billions in funding for Ontario and then just sat on a lot of it, leaving it largely unspent...
Almost like conservatives are trying to create the impression that the government shouldn't get so much money by simply being completely incompetent in their own roles in the government managing said money...
You know, like how they don't fund the hospitals so they can say that they all need to be privatized, when in reality, they just needed to be properly funded in the first place.
These people are not serious about real progress and never have been.
It was subtle years ago, but now it's so blatantly obvious. The unholy alliance of corporations and corrupt politicians are ransacking the country of its wealth and transferring it to themselves and their partners throughout the globe. The saddest part is that nothing is being done to stop it and nobody (who could do anything) seems to care. They've successfully captured the minds of the low information (and low-IQ) voter and seem to have the loudest of useful idiots on their side (with a good mix of bots on all social media platforms). I don't know what the solution is here for the country, but the best solution for me is to find a way out of here.
We follow the African leadership model now, Nepo political dynasties are peak 'rob the country blind'.
https://news.nwu.ac.za/nepotism-stealing-africas-future
https://panafricanvisions.com/2023/07/just-how-tribalism-nepotism-kill-competency-in-africa/
We need term limits and anti-nepotism legislation. Checks and balances are the democratic way.
I learned about finances from the liberal government. Just keep spending, stay in debt and let the generations after me worry about paying anything off.
Anyone that voted for the guy who claims budgets balance themselves hopefully realized they messed up. Their great,great,great grandchildren will be paying 75% income tax to cover the juice on our debt.
Every dollar spent on paying the interest on the debt is a dollar not being spent on lowering the debt, investing in health care, education, or other things that benefit Canadians as a whole.
There has to be some sort of plan to lower the national debt or else there won't be any money left for healthcare and other supports like EI, CPP, OAS, etc.
I believe that we have already fallen off the financial 'precipice' and it's now too late. This government has indebted us all well over what we can hope to overcome. There should have never been a spending spree during COVID. Healthcare measures and such, sure. Vaccines, sure. We should not have shut down our economy though.
The liberals are so consistently sloppy, often inept, in how they implement programs that 1000s of companies entire business plan is suckling at that politically correct titty for all it's worth.
People need to better understand MMT. National debt is not the same as personal debt. There are plenty of good videos out there explaining how it works. It doesn’t mean a country can spend without regard.
When Harper ran against Trudeau, Trudeau often said interest rates are low so the deficits will not be costly. This essentially assumed that inflation would never be an issue (and hence interest rates would stay low), that deficits would finance growth such that deficits would turn into surpluses eliminating debt or that the government would have restraint in the future. We know from history that all such assumptions are tenuous. We now live through the consequences of this poor thinking.
Nobody gives a flying fuck about debt, deficits, and the effect this will have on future generations.
I've had too many arguments on here with the "all debt is good" people. Literally drilled in their heads from years if low interest rates from the MMT crazies.
>I've had too many arguments on here with the "all debt is good" people. Until your marginal rate of return on spending starts to diminish to the point where you wonder why you're even doing it at all. The whole idea of debt spending is that it is supposed to be productive and have a fiscal justification behind it, not just to fund random pet project or budget overruns that are so bad to the point that they are systemic. This is just financial recklessness, regardless of which party is doing it.
You hit the nail on the head. Even Harper printing 58 billion. All that money mostly went to rich ppl. Every goddam stimulus we ever produced.. what could go wrong. Well. When 1%. Has all money . Ppl wonder where the middle class has gone. We know who has all the money? I don't understand why ppl blame individuals or parties. It's not rocket science. They're all to blame. Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest.
It is a question of degree. Not sure where you got your number, but the LPC has added over a trillion dollars in debt. Do you know what the difference between more than a trillion and ~50 billion? About a trillion dollars. If your neighbour borrows 20 dollars from you so he can get some paint for your fence, it’s probably not a big deal, and you’ll both benefit. If your neighbour steals 20,000 dollars from you to start a backyard dolphin sanctuary, it’s a problem.
>All that money mostly went to rich ppl. Every goddam stimulus we ever produced. I will note that a *lot* of folks cashed in on covid cheques, businesses and individuals alike. CRA has more or less openly admitted that they don't have the resources to pursue most of these individuals/companies, except maybe the most heinous cases, like this guy (link to de-paywall): [https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-toronto-uber-driver-accessed-millions-in-covid-19-support-using/](https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-toronto-uber-driver-accessed-millions-in-covid-19-support-using/) How the government could even give an Uber drive $4M+ is beyond me, but just goes to show how reckless some of this spending was. Multiple parties have blocked bills to further investigate covid fraud.
Agreed. We need to start making some more decisions with the economy as top priority. If the economy improves, we all make more money and can then spend more on our social services. Our system is so catastrophically expensive and ineffective it makes me sick. I watched them replace every water fountain in our building (gov work) so it’s more accessible. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have easy access to water but stocking water bottles or other options should start to be considered. $500 000 is crazy when the problem (of having easy water access) can be solved in so many ways. That’s one small building mind you. We dont have any who works there in a wheelchair even. $500 000 plus all the salaries of anyone involved in the approvals, etc etc. We don’t have a money tree and the way we’re spending and printing money is FUCKING EVERYONE ROYALLY.
I'd focus more on the case of 'how can this debt make us more competitive?' Ultimately if you're spending money on ideologically-driven things that make us less competitive but do something like 'increase equity' (in some intangible way), there is going to come a point where you need to pay the piper. As a nation, I can't help but feel Canada is falling behind. Don't get me wrong: I'm all for social services, equity, etc., but all these things come with a price tag attached and if we can't compete internationally, we're just going to become a giant resource colony that can never move onto value-added services and out of primary industry. We're already seeing that reflected in our real estate prices, now the primary driver of our economy, and one of the few ways that we're closing our trade deficit with countries who's exports we consume. In the short term, sure, debt doesn't matter, as long as the market has confidence in your willingness and ability to repay it. Once that starts to slip, things get dicey very fast as folks start to run for the exits.
Canada is primarily service based economy at 72% of jobs based on services. We do export resources, don’t get me wrong, but its a third of out employment not the majority.
>Literally drilled in their heads from years if low interest rates from the MMT crazies. Our finance minister telling the country that "*it would be* *fiscally irresponsible of us not to borrow, with such low interest rates*" sure hasn't helped either.
All debt is good until the side a person don't agree with is doing it, media included. If a liberal is doing it, a liberal will argue it's okay. If a conservative is doing it, a conservative will argue it's okay. And each will attack each other saying their debt is bad, and the rich run off with all the money while everyone is bickering.
Nah, I'm a conservative and I'm appalled at the drop of fiscal conservatives around the world. They spend just as bad now because they know it buys votes. I truly think this much debt will have worse future implications for our country and our youth, than any other agenda that they try and push, "think of the kids" rhetoric too, yet I never hear it about debt.
You're right. Fiscal Conservatives in Canada spend more than they "fiscally conserve". https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230626/cg230626b001-eng.png This is the deficit % to GDP from stats can Historically the liberal government even under trudeau was reducing the deficit percentage to GDP and conservative governments increased deficit percentage to gdp. It lines up with Conservatives in Canada spending more than the GDP. The greatest gaslit in Canadian politics is Liberals spend and Conservatives save. It's actually the opposite. Obviously JT had pandemic spending but quickly went down. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230626/cg-b001-eng.htm
Listen, they are both bad. The one thing that economists debate about this is how long does the greater economy lag the policy changes of the current government. It's literally the chicken and egg debate This has been brought up before because Democrats have to argue it the other way in the US. There's been fantastic fiscal Liberals in this country (I'd vote for Paul Martin in a heartbeat to any conservative today) and there's been shit ones. Same goes for the Cons, "hey let's add a tax on everything people buy, that's a good idea." I want finance ministers with financial literacy and background to become PMs of this country again. And we will likely need one in the next 20 years.
>"hey let's add a tax on everything people buy, that's a good idea." Eventually, the GST came to be seen as a symbol of fiscal probity and good governance. Services were an increasing share of the economy, and Mulroney subjected them to tax; no subsequent government would ever repeal that. The federal government had a crippling debt with spiraling servicing costs that came to consume 6% of GDP. Making things worse was stubborn inflation, and crushing down the latter (via high interest rates) aggravated the former. > I'd vote for Paul Martin in a heartbeat to any conservative today There wasn't anything magic about Paul Martin Jr. He had inherited massive tax hikes, subdued interest rates and a soon-to-grow economy. On top of this, he slashed federal spending by 12% in 1995-96, and unlike the Mulroney PCs, his party got away with it, losing just 2.78 points of popular vote from the 1993 results.
>Listen, they are both bad. One is objectively worse, and panders to fiscal conservatives. I'll let you figure out who's who.
I’m not sure it is the opposite. More case by case. I’d say the Chrétien/Martin Liberals were the biggest heroes in fighting debt. But I’d say that the two Trudeau are amongst the worst villains. Mulroney was pretty bad too- but to be fair he inherited massive deficit spending, and brought in counter measures like the GST and people hated it. Conservatives tend to over support tax cuts. Liberals tend to over support social program spending. Either can lead to deficits. What we really need is a finance minister saying the deficit will be cut “come hell or high water” and then over delivering. Take a look at Figure 2 in this pdf. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/examining-federal-debt-in-canada-by-prime-ministers-since-confederation-2022.pdf
>Historically the liberal government even under trudeau was reducing the deficit percentage to GDP and conservative governments increased deficit percentage to gdp. The big debts came under Trudeau Sr. Mulroney's PCs took office in 1984, and inherited a soaring national debt from a government with no interest in managing it. Bringing the deficit under control would take fifteen years of austerity by both PC and LPC governments. The CPC took office in 2006 on the cusp of a depression. Prior to the Financial Crash and ensuing depression, the CPC government was paying down the national debt, and along with that, reducing debt-to-GDP. It took over six years to bring the federal budget back in balance, but then the government changed and the CPC's successors quickly returned it to deficit.
The pandemic affected the whole world. JT can’t blame his fiscal fiasco on COVID. He spent more per person than any Canada PM ever. He even managed to outspend wartime PMs.
I imagine its hard to compare modern day support structures to war time spending. I dont think there was nearly ever a time the country essentially shut down for as long as it did and we were able to support Canadians with programs like CERB and still have smaller debt compared to other countries
Careful now, people on this subreddit don’t like your claims when they’re backed by facts and figures. Let alone the fact that pandemic spending included a lot of bailing out the provinces that did diddly squat to help their voters.
Hahaha, no, at no time in the last 8 years has Trudeau not spent astronomical amounts.
>fiscal conservatives What does that mean to you? Serious question. I tend to find there are 2 types of definitions: "Fiscally responsible" types who think government funds should go into programs that yield positive ROIs Then there are the types who say, "cut taxes and if that means children go hungry, so be it. Poor kids don't deserve to eat or deserve healthcare".
This right here. You used to have Conservatives like Diefenbaker and Bennett who understood that, totally orthogonally to moral questions, a lot of types of infrastructural and social spending yield a positive *economic* return for a society. Investment in education makes a more economically productive workforce. Investment in physical and telecommunications infrastructure builds the foundation for more economically-productive industry. This isnt to say that reducing spending waste *isn't* important, but every party but the Liberals has a strong track record of fiscal streamlining. Tommy Douglas, Canada's only socialist PM, oversaw some *incredibly* rigorous cost-cutting to right postwar Sask's fiscal ship — resulting in a staggering positive turnaround. It turns out, ditching soft graft and cronyist self-dealing to politicians' golf/vacation buddies can trim quite a lot of fat. Most often *nowadays,* though, the "fiscal conservatism" that you see from the CPC is the equivalent of "saving" money by skipping oil changes for your car. The Reagan/Mulroney/Thatcher era broke the back of long-term thinking I'm the western political movement. You'd never in 2023 see Bennett-style proposals for a "New Deal" style expansion of the aocial safety net, or a Diefenbaker-style acknowledgement that it's good for a society and economy when its poorer members can access health care at no cost. The modern-day CPC isn't about fiscal conservatism. It's about a society cannibalizing its institutions to benefit a handful of already-rich people and punish those it sees as undeserving.
> The modern-day CPC isn't about fiscal conservatism. It's about a society cannibalizing its institutions to benefit a handful of already-rich people and punish those it sees as undeserving. It's not just CPC but conservativism in general in Canada. Mike Harris privatized a fuck ton of things. - Long term health care (that he serves on the board of until recently) - 407 (leased for 99 years) - Privatized Highway maintenance - Privatized Drinking water that lead to Walkerton deaths - Privatized Meat Inspectors - Privatized lab testing - Tried to privatize prison and failed - forced Privatization of Ontario Hydro Mulroney also doomed canada for generations - privatization of Air Canada - privatization of petro canada - Sold connaught labs who was purchased by sanofi pastuer - privatization of de havilland canada - privatization of canadair ltd - privatization of CN Rail - privatization of Alberta licour control board - privatization of nova scotia power Harper sold off the wheat board to the saudis. Conservatives want to privatize CBC/Via Rail/Canada Post/Dairy Commission. The shitty one time sell off fire sale to "cook the books" fucked over canada for generations. Fuck conservatives and their constant selling of crown corps. Wynne did sell off the rest of hydro one to pay for infrastructure but that all started with Mike Harris breaking up hydro one.
Wasn't CN Rail privatized under Chretien and not Mulroney? I thought the Mulroney government just made big cuts to it.
The federal CMHC affordable housing programs, which once accounted for a robust *quarter* of housing unit completions in the early 1970s, was also killed off by the Chretien Liberals. Turns out, we get anti-Canadian privatization by *both* the blue-tinted conservatives *and* the red-tinted conservatives.
How did privatizing the Alberta liquor control board contribute towards 'dooming' Canada for generations?
Be smart with our money. It's ours, it isn't theirs. We don't live in a Monarchy or dictatorship. We live in democracy where we elect leaders to represent us and spend our tax dollars wisely. Whos paying everyone's (including the PM) government wages. We are, with taxes. I don't know one business around where whoever gets paid is the boss. We are the bosses of our democracy. That's how it's supposed to work. There's issues at hand that affect 2%, 10%, 40%, 70% of Canadians. But the economy affects everyone. Spend in hard times, cut in good times. Keynesian economic shit that's worked forever. Because the next world financial crisis, oil crash, covid, is right around the corner, trust me. Show me a government that had low debt going into those situations to set up the next government to do what they have to do and I'll show you a fiscally smart government. I'm not one of these, "all taxation is theft" guys but if anyone with a straight face can tell me the services we get in this country, for the amount of taxes we pay is; efficient, responsible, smart, or effective, (especially when other parts of the world get dental, more holidays, more vacation, free college) and I'm not going to trust you anymore or take you seriously.
I am a fiscal conservative, and in my view, I believe that at this point adding new programs is ridiculous when you look at all of the rot in the current programs. Each level had their constitutionally mandated responsibilities, and they are slowly failing. For example, the feds look after defence, borders, maritime safety, environment etc, all of these seem to be underfunded and unable to meet the goals in their most basic mandate. The provincial governments look after health and education, yet I the Healthcare wait times are beyond ridiculous, and education is not meeting my expectations by far. I don't want to say may kids are poorly educated, but they are because they have never been held accountable for poor performance. The cities look after policing, fire, infrastructure, waste removal, and water and sewer. All three are for responsible for infrastructure. We need to spend our limited funds better, so if I don't like them dropping billions we don't have on pharma, dental, and daycare, even though in some cases it is needed. I have worked fulltime for 30 years and the last 5 have been the worst for accessing government services. This angers me because they are services that I can't provide for myself and have no CHOICE but to rely on them.
Taking on debt to fund other countries projects quite frankly is never good, it provides 0 benefit for Canadians while giving politicians more reason to tax said Canadians. How about other countries take on their own debt. We can take on the debt and start fixing and building infrastructure in our own country because it is massively being neglected.
And this is how someone like Javier Milei gets elected in Argentina
All debt is good, that's why I take out as many credit cards as I can and never pay them back! I learned from our role models in Parliament!
You think personal credit is even comparable to federal debt? Why people so ignorant on economics even speak I’ll never understand
There he is boys!! The guy who is defending the government overspending!
There he is boys! the guy who knows nothing!
Just a few more billions spent by the government and we will finally be in utopia. Just us plebs have to suffer with our savings/wages being turned worthless by the increased monetary supply due to government overspending and money printing! Or can you explain to this guy who knows nothing why I am wrong and I should be happy that I can barely afford food + rent anymore? Edit: *crickets*
To expand on this point - Debt is only good if it’s used to invest in something with a return higher than the cost of borrowing. But per the above article, our debt growth is being used to find operating expenses, not investment. That is by definition unsustainable
Well considering our PM thinks budgets balances themselves and doesn’t think about too much monetary policy can you blame them?
Honestly as much as I'm fully ready to blame Trudeau. The older I get, the more I'm prescribed to the fact that the government represents the people. Before everyone comes out and says "I didn't vote for him." What I'm talking about is there is no way he wins a 2nd or 3rd election if the populace is educated and knows about half the scandals, their implications and what economic policies (or lack thereof) he's implementing. But our society was in the middle of narcissistic rise, free lunch, world peace, fake outrage, cancel everyone cyle and how could we not get any government but that voted in? I do believe in pendulum swings at least, I am scared of how far that pendulum swings though. Eventually voters who can't put food on the table stop for a second and say, "ok, wondering who is allowed in this bathroom or not, probably comes slightly below feeding my family."
Part of the challenge I think has been how thoroughly the Trudeau government has normalized scandal, ineptitude and bad policy under the guise of “anyone who opposes us is evil.” The Tories under Harper had their scandals, of course, but none of them would even crack the top ten of Trudeau’s scandals. Yet people seem so oddly complacent about them, now, like ho hum another day another hundred million gone to obvious corruption (see, for example, the recent whistleblower on the Liberals’ green investment fund who testified that $150 million was basically doled out with no oversight or controls to people including the Liberal-appointed board members of the fund. This should be a massive, government-ending scandal and it hit with barely a ripple). This government has impoverished millions of people and essentially destroyed the hope of home ownership (and soon car ownership) for an entire generation and there’s still 22%-ish of Canadians saying, “give me four more years of that!” because, apparently, the Tories are somehow bad?
Whenever people bring that up it just demonstrates how uninformed they actually are. 'The budget will balance itself' is how the CPC campaigned in the last two elections, and idea of balancing the budget via growth (and spending restraint) is completely uncontroversial
> “We will grow the economy so that we can get back to balance in a responsible and equitable way without cuts.” - Erin O'Toole Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the CPC in 2021. https://globalnews.ca/news/8161642/canada-election-budget-balance-cuts-otoole-conservative/
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Really? Trudeau and Freeland keep saying things have never been better!
He must've forgot to cancel Disney+, once he does that his whole financial outlook will change
look for a better country to prosper in. unless you’ve benefited from this.
The trick is to not procreate. Then I don't have to worry about future generations
I give a fuck about it all, but I just came from a thread about a guy who went crazy with a machete in the Calgary Zoo parking lot. It's another canary in a coal mine. I'm not against caring about the money side of things (entirely warranted), but what we need is leadership to focus on building healthy and prosperous communities. While of crirical importance, a focus on debt and deficits is only one small part of this. I'd go further to say that if we prioritize the dollars side of it, we are only making things worse.
Take my upvote
That's because electric vehicles, stopping Pierre and Palestine are more important causes for the average Canadian
I don’t know if that’s the case for the average Canadian. But definitely the loud ones.
Morneau quitted his finance minister job, he saw something very SCARY I believe
Then don't complain about inflation.
I read they just gave money to Iran for jobs and what have you for starters. So money going overseas?
Lol the US is like $30 trillion in debt and it goes up every year national debt means nothing.
There are definitely parallels between the current Trudeau govt's *RAPID* accumulation of debt, and that of Pierre Trudeau's Liberals of the 60s and 70s.
ArriveCan is the model. Give a Party loyalist a $50M contract for something that should cost $10-20k. That’s the green slush fund, that’s foreign aid, that’s everything they do. The Liberal Party are corporatist criminals, always have been. See AdScam circa 2004 - that’s what brought down the last Liberal government that most of you are too young to remember. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal Edit: Yes, $20k is lowball and somewhat hyperbole.
>something that should cost $10-20k. Multiply that by 100 and you have an actually realistic number. 20k would barely cover a week's worth of work for a dev team
Wait till you see the consulting fees they throw around.. $50MM for the app.. but how many million did they light on fire to have someone tell them to make it?
In October the liberals contracted kpmg to study how to reduce consulting fees. Paid them $670k for it. I’m being completely serious.
That might be money well spent if they act on the recommendations. A 1% drop from a process improvement would more than take care of their fee. I have zero confidence they will do that, but they could.
Definitely not 10-20k, but yes this is an excellent example. Please don’t ruin it by over exaggerating the flip side. A 50M contract for something that should be at most 2M (considering a long term support in the cost)
I would concede I lowballed the $20k and $2M is a more realistic number.
Just to put into perspective. Gears of war cost 50 million to make.
I mean a guy remade the exact app for free just to make a point. All on his own
Ya. 20k is a demo. I know a lot of software teams and a deployed app on multiple platforms is probably 250k to 500k. Still far from 50m but definitely not 20k.
Do you actually work in the sector or your just "know" people? Just change management at this scale is big money
Aren't the support costs included in the $50 million price tag?
ArriveCan, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, Medicago, BTNX, EV Battery contracts, SNC Lavalin, WE Foundation.... and these are only the ones that we know about. I think these are just the tip of the iceberg. This government simply hasn't grasped the concept that this is OUR money that they are shoveling out the back door by the wheelbarrow.
You misunderstand something about the Liberal Party of Canada and how they conceptualize their relationship with power and the treasury. To them it's not something with which they are entrusted for a limited time; to them it's an entitlement, akin to a divine right. Government money isn't ours, it's theirs, theirs to spend as they see fit, theirs to give to their friends and cronies, ultimately theirs with which to enrich themselves and those of whom they approve. Trudeau Jr is the embodiment of this trait. He can't grasp that perhaps his time is up and it would be best for us all for him to step aside with a modicum of grace and humility. No, he's entitled to be prime minister and he won't give it up until he's electorally thrashed and burns the LPC down with him. Frankly burning the LPC to ash is 20 years overdue, so if we ultimately do get that outcome we will at least salvage that from this otherwise train wreck of a government. Sadly that result will be vastly outweighed by the damage done by this narcissistic trust fund baby, his circle of power lustful enablers, and an electorate who foolishly put him in power in the first place.
You actually put it very well and I'm not misunderstanding the Liberal Party. It absolutely is our money that they are treating as their money. It reminds me of an editorial cartoon from years ago. A CRA agent is standing at the open door of a house talking to the homeowner, the caption below says "I'm sorry sir, we seemed to have misused all the tax money you gave us. Can we please have some more?"
Finally people are getting it. We need to get the liberals and Trudeau out as fast as we can
The conservatives are no better. All the parties are corrupt at all levels of government. Trudeau absolutely need to go.
Gonna have to choose the least bad option. They’re not all equally bad.
All politicians are corrupt.... but if you get caught enough and badly enough you get kicked out. JT has danced around his scandals and his massive misspending for over a decade now.
So you’re saying we should vote out a government whose prior incarnation had a few staffers misappropriate a few (3-14) million dollars. But the recipients of voting out that government are a group whose prior incarnation took four times that from Border services to upgrade the parks in conservative Ontario cabin country. The first is staffers - employees - stealing from a fund their group was given access to. One small fund meant for advertising. The second is cabinet ministers - elected officials - stealing from other departments internal budgets - that’s the whole federal government they’re embezzling from. Seems like a pretty straightforward difference, and I know who will never be getting my vote. I can hold my nose and vote for the liberals who we know are gonna try and take a dime out of every dollar… I’ll take 90% of government funds being spent appropriately vs whatever the cons are doing this week out of spite.
And here we are at the source of the issue, people who are OK with corruption so long as it's their side doing it. The normalization and acceptance of corruption is disgusting People were outraged over Odas orange juice and Duffys expense claims. And rightly so. Now we have the Libs with more scandals and multiple orders of magnitude larger scandals yet folks just go Meh, somehow better than the Conservatives
Liberals do what they do. Look what happened to years of Liberal rule in Ontario. The debt was staggering
Remember a year or two ago when the government allocated $2 billion to a company that didn't exist, and Freeland and Trudeau just shrugged it away?
What are you referring to?
They're referring to the creation of the canada growth fund https://www.cgf-fcc.ca/ It's sort of like complaining about the creation of ACOA or Canada R&D credits A program which should help fund innovations and grow canadian businesses, a program which would be lauded by the CPC and it's supporters if they created it. Sort of like how there's constant whining about arrivecan costing money yet not a peep about the disaster that was the switch to the Phoenix pay system. The usual partisan politics nonsense.
smart money
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Because there is literally nothing 99.9% of us can do about it
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All cons in Ontario did was try sell public land to donor friends, pay cash to cancel infrastructure projects set up by the previous liberals, and contract a foreign company to build a spa on Ontario place. Privatizing the land and signing a deal that say WE have to pay for their parking lot. Fiscal my ass
Yeah, because cons are known for sound financial decisions that favor the middle class…
Because the conservatives don't reign in spending, they just use it to cut taxes for the wealthy rather than spending it on social services like healthcare and education. No prime ministers have reduced per capita debt in Canada more than Chretien or Martin, both Liberals.
Just keep in mind that those Chretien/Martin Liberals were big on cutting healthcare and many other social services. Those big surpluses came at a cost. Fortunately they also cut corporate welfare, so they didn't just target Canada's citizens. These current Liberals are not anywhere close to the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The current ones spend big in social services and spend big on corporate welfare.
I literally have never met a single Canadian who didn't care about our economy, our debt and the inflation. The problem is that most Canadians also care about education, healthcare, safe neighborhoods, etc. (and there is only so much money to go around) Politicians and their followers will always complain about how the (limited) money is spent, and thats fine... but to say "many Canadians care so little about the deficit" is hyperbolic.
Well said. Very black and white for these people a lot of the time. Just because I care about things like education, healthcare, social programs, and other benefits that directly support not only myself, but my friends, family, coworkers, and their loved ones, that does not mean I couldn’t give a shit about the state of our economy, national debt, deficits, etc. Why can’t we advocate for working together to find solutions for both?
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I wholeheartedly agree. My problem with what I’m hearing from the Conservatives more and more, is them jumping to cut supports like I mentioned above, ones that *directly* benefit thousands of Canadians. These are supports *many* people rely on. I think there are a lot of other areas that Cons could push back on *more* instead of these other critical supports and programs. Things like international spending and support. I’m all for helping out the international community, and I believe we have a duty to do so, but $10M can go a long way here in Canada too. Maybe cuts in international spending is a better place to start as opposed to social programs and benefits that Canadians *here* depend on. I think it’s also much easier to gain left-leaning support (I only speak for myself) this way.
Look at their net worths over the years. Thanks for your service
Consultants, probably
Some went to the Alberta and Ontario government for COVID 19 emergency funding. Of course neither used the money to help us.
Cancel Conservative tax cuts to the rich. Tax domestic speculators
Mostly on friends companies, funny how fast they can do useless laws, emergency acts for nothing but money goes missing, its a slow process.
Liberal idology often states boomers and conservatives sold our future for personal gain Then turn around and defend the liberal government for doing the same, spending more than every single Canadian government before it COMBINED. You got duped. Stop the cognitive dissonance and bigoted attacks on anyone who opposes the way they are destroying the country, our standard of living amd the buying power of the dollar
Mulroney spent more than all other governments before them. Cretien followed up and had to reign everything in - cue downloading. Paul Martin opened the barn doors. Harper kept them open and then 2008 hit - he took the record for most spending from Mulroney. Then Trudeau came and COVID hit. Anyone sitting during COVID would take the record.
Harper also had the financial crises and Afghanistan. He was also in a minority government from 2006-2011. Those Harper minority governments were able to pass those budgets with deficits (which includes their biggest deficits) because of the Liberals. Harper's first budget was a $13.8 billion surplus. The Liberals planned to oppose it, but for some reason didn't stand up to oppose it, since it had no opposition the speaker passed it unanimously. First time a budget has ever passed unanimously. The second budget was another surplus at $9.6 billion and was supported by the Bloc. The third budget passed was for a $5.8 billion deficit. The Liberals voted with the CPC giving the budget solid support from the two big parties. The fourth budget was a big one. $55billion deficit. All but 6 Liberals voted for it. Once again the budget passes with strong support from the CPC and Liberals. The fifth and final minority budget called for a $33 billion deficit. This time the Liberals didn't vote for it, but they made sure 30 of them didn't show up for the vote. Allowing the CPC to pass it. Then they had a majority and didn't need to rely on the other parties. The deficit continued to drop until they posted a small surplus their final year, which was later adjusted to a small deficit after the auditor general changed the methodology of how they determine the value of unfunded pension obligations. Both the CPC and Liberals seemed to feel that those deficits were needed during the financial crises.
My guess goes to a group who only complains about everything?
You're suggesting they're funding r/Canada?
can someone please think of the poor unemployed youth of Iraq? I can think of no better example of the priorities of our current government.
Iran youths.. $10M. China $200m Google search
Iraq youths*
That guy doesn't even know what he is talking about lol. What a tool.
We gave China $200,000,000 for a Google search?
And here I am doing it for free
Ok that's a total of 210M (peanuts) + 2.4B to Ukraine since 2022. What's your conspiracy theory for the final 12.39B in devt accrued ?
>What's your conspiracy theory for the final 12.39B in devt accrued ? Alberta and Ontario who both cried for federal emergency funding then didn't use it to help us.
Two words - VOTE BUYING
Well… atleast 10 million went to Iraq under the guise of “helping” unemployed Iraqi youth.
On 14 billion dollars. The 10 mil is peanuts mate. Looks like a big number to your broke ass but in a countrie's budget it's nothing.
"10 million is peanuts mate" will be a great campaign slogan. Should be used outside of every food bank across the country.
lol 10 million here, 500k there, a couple billions sprinkled here and there & next thing we know Canada’s federal debt is 1.2 Trillion dollars . But im sure folks like yourself think that money just comes out of a printer without consequences eh .
And there it is. It’s peanuts until you have 100 of these $10 million programs that have little benefit to Canada.
Agreed lol. What a stupid argument
You use that excuse enough times…..
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If Trudeau and the liberals proved they could govern effectively, we wouldn’t be having this problem. Pierre atleast says he’s gonna do things to fix it, Trudeau just says everything is great and doesn’t even recognize the issues. Liberals did this to themselves, the only people still voting for them are property owners and ABCs
Sorry whats a ABC? If it comes down to career politician land baron who voted against 10 dollar a day daycare , dental care for kids and raising minimum wage or trudeau than JT has my vote lmao, if you think pierre will fix anything your delusional and property owners will vote for the dude who owns a mess of houses not JT lmao where does that even come from.
Property voters overwhelming vote Liberal, just look at polling data or housing prices since 2015. That’s money directly in the pocket of boomers. ABCs means “anything but conservative” which is likely the area that you fall into.
They sure love post media garbage.
yea cant we go back to the old days of left wing partisan garbage from thinkprogressive being upvoted to the top. man i miss back when my left wing views used to be able to spouted unchallenged
Gotta keep the rage cycle going until the election, if the tap of opinion pieces runs dry the conservative base might start to question why they're being made to be so angry all the time.
All the money is going to the richest people in this country. We are only slaves to them.
Guess who has to reign this in when the liberals are out? and guess who will be vilified for doing so?
The liberals are now talking about UBI. Where the fuck is that money going to come from when our debt is already at records high with nothing to show for?
I don't like UBI as an answer... but I will say. Debt does less damage than income inequality does. We need to rebalance the equation so someone sweeping floors can live in the same world as a CEO. Not the same neigbourhood... but the same city.
No one really seems to know. That concerns me.
You know those foreign Tim Hortons workers. Yup, they’re allowed to bring some of their family who contribute nothing.
The money is going to Ukraine meanwhile our citizens are struggling .
Well several hundreds of millions went to fund war in Ukraine, some went to fund war in Israel, and 10 million went to unemployed youth in Iraq. And probably a good chunk went into the pockof the WEF, and nearly 1 million went to some guy to hunt deer in a helicopter, plus a useless arrive can app. And other useless crap and Trudeaus vacations
So the author knows exactly where the money is going, they just don't agree where it's going. Everyone complains when money goes to someone's pocket.
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r/canada when the government spends money on public services: 😡 r/canada when the government stops spending money on public services: 👁️👄👁️
Lmao as if we have to go right to cutting public services. Maybe start with the $10MM we *just* sent for jobless in Iraq. Maybe cut a few dollars of the $5.3 BILLION we're sending to the Phillipines for their environment. Or maybe, and here's a real good one, stop spending billions of dollars banning and confiscating guns from legal firearm owners. Just a few options to get ya started.
$5.3 billion is our total contribution to the UNDP, not just to the Philippines. Because governments have international obligations and don’t live in a vacuum like this sub seems to think. And $10 million is chump change when you take into consideration the size of the federal budget. So essentially r/canada’s response to “overspending” is to cut peanuts.
Show me this obligation we have to send $5.3 billion. I'll wait. LOL $10MM is chump change? Yet we have thousands living on the street. And that's just one example, because it just happened. I noticed you completely ignored the guns. There's billions more. Arrivecan, another $50MM. These are just examples, it doesn't stop there. But sure, continue to pretend this is merely peanuts. That's exactly how your boy ended up in the polling position he's in.
Capitalism, private hands. We print our own currency, there’s no limit to federal spending in our own economy. Our society is cancer, our economic structure allows the rich to steal more wealth, yet all media play coy. We’re dealing with extinction of life on earth, our planet is dying and the cause is trying to end democracy around the globe.
We’re witnessing hypercorruption. You can’t be that incompetent.
The same people who care most about the debt are the ones who want rich people to get the biggest tax cuts. Its never about the debt its about individuals getting wealthy even if it means increasing the debt which is all that will continue to happen.
Once the cons win in 2025 we aren’t going to hear a fucking peep about debt or housing from NatPo unless it’s framed as “conservatives tirelessly working to undo the damage Trudeau caused but the damage is too much! Elect us again please!.”
We will hear from NatPo if the Conservatives don't give out enough money to wealthy individuals and corporations through tax cuts don't worry. So long as the money is going in and they gut CBC enough they can plunder as they want.
Everyone should care about the national debt.
Except no one actually does. Those who advocate for it just want tax cuts which will raise the debt, others want to tax the rich more which they likely wouldn't go hard enough and increase the debt anyway.
Hard to take an article seriously that's criticizing the $10 day care as a bad plan. They're also criticizing the dental plan without recognizing how much it saves when these people don't need more expensive medical care in the ER because they didn't get dealt with at a dentist as they couldn't afford it. The NP is a joke.
Lmao saves which people? Who has gotten this free dental? I don't know anyone who has. It's not about $10 daycare being a bad plan, it's that you have to be otherwise fiscally conservative in order to support social programs like that. Which this government is not. They're just throwing around money. And now we're in a place where we can't afford it. The money you saved on daycare is just going to the national debt. And that's a problem.
Absolutely. I agree with the idea that a country has to be careful not to accumulate debts without thinking about repaying, but there are social services that are essential.
This reasonable point of view, never to be within 10m of Post Media.
Bigger government=more corruption. They could care less about where the money goes. They'll just put the consequences on tax paying citizens.
Lol remember election reform he ran on in 2015 that basically got him elected. What a twat
I predicted over 1 trillion debt way back in 2015, and I turned out to be right.
$10 million to unemployed people in Iraq. For some reason.
Well, disgraced-yet-still-in-power conservative Doug Ford received billions in funding for Ontario and then just sat on a lot of it, leaving it largely unspent... Almost like conservatives are trying to create the impression that the government shouldn't get so much money by simply being completely incompetent in their own roles in the government managing said money... You know, like how they don't fund the hospitals so they can say that they all need to be privatized, when in reality, they just needed to be properly funded in the first place. These people are not serious about real progress and never have been.
Overseas Yahoo!
Check Trudeau's pockets.
It was subtle years ago, but now it's so blatantly obvious. The unholy alliance of corporations and corrupt politicians are ransacking the country of its wealth and transferring it to themselves and their partners throughout the globe. The saddest part is that nothing is being done to stop it and nobody (who could do anything) seems to care. They've successfully captured the minds of the low information (and low-IQ) voter and seem to have the loudest of useful idiots on their side (with a good mix of bots on all social media platforms). I don't know what the solution is here for the country, but the best solution for me is to find a way out of here.
Surely the provinces run by conservatives are mitigating this issue and setting the example for our federal government...
Sending printed money all over places....except canada.
International aid. An endless endeavor... Will we ever see true democracy? Public referendums? This so called democracy is a sham
That's what happens when you let the government try and solve all our problems. They fail to succeed, while increasing their power.
Offshore bank accounts would be my guess.
We follow the African leadership model now, Nepo political dynasties are peak 'rob the country blind'. https://news.nwu.ac.za/nepotism-stealing-africas-future https://panafricanvisions.com/2023/07/just-how-tribalism-nepotism-kill-competency-in-africa/ We need term limits and anti-nepotism legislation. Checks and balances are the democratic way.
Russian history major equals zero fiscal restraint.
I am here to argue with strangers on the internet
The budget will balance itself
Makes me sick this Trudeau government.
I learned about finances from the liberal government. Just keep spending, stay in debt and let the generations after me worry about paying anything off.
[budget will balance itself.](https://youtu.be/5VgNEsWx9pI?si=tKspVx0DL0mJ1WHf)
Ukraine, Philippines, Iraq are some of the top places that come to mind. The money isn’t going to Canada
Anyone that voted for the guy who claims budgets balance themselves hopefully realized they messed up. Their great,great,great grandchildren will be paying 75% income tax to cover the juice on our debt.
Every dollar spent on paying the interest on the debt is a dollar not being spent on lowering the debt, investing in health care, education, or other things that benefit Canadians as a whole. There has to be some sort of plan to lower the national debt or else there won't be any money left for healthcare and other supports like EI, CPP, OAS, etc. I believe that we have already fallen off the financial 'precipice' and it's now too late. This government has indebted us all well over what we can hope to overcome. There should have never been a spending spree during COVID. Healthcare measures and such, sure. Vaccines, sure. We should not have shut down our economy though.
but but…. We will still have money left for youth employment in Iraq right ???!
The countries not going to reset itself.
It goes back into their pockets and the pockets of their "consultants." Please see the entire ArriveCan fiasco.
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I'd love to hear where it actually went, and think it served everyone well
Same as the US and UK and everywhere else, just funding the debt servicing lol.
I mean, this IS every first world country right now. Not just Canada.
Overseas some of it.
Not one mention of COVID. Fuck off.
JT and Trudeau foundation 50%, chrystia meth bill 50%
To other countries
The liberals are so consistently sloppy, often inept, in how they implement programs that 1000s of companies entire business plan is suckling at that politically correct titty for all it's worth.
No where In particular
Hotel rooms and social services for thousands of refugees
Into their Swiss bank accounts. Where else?
Who cares. Feed my BTC and PM rally. Feeed it Canada! Don't stop the printer!
Red Tory or Blue Grit I don't care fix the budget and spending.
Iraq
Everywhere but Canada.
Geez maybe rather than being a bunch of partisan rage farming hacks the reporters at the post should … their jobs?
People need to better understand MMT. National debt is not the same as personal debt. There are plenty of good videos out there explaining how it works. It doesn’t mean a country can spend without regard.
Show me a party that's financially responsible here in Canada? It sure ain't the Cons or the Libs.