This week, it was revealed that Canadian household debt has reached $2.5 trillion. That\u2019s 103% of GDP and the highest level in the G7. It\u2019s also the second-highest in the OECD, the organization of the world\u2019s 38 richest countries. Only Switzerland (128%) is higher.<\/p>\n
Comparable countries are significantly lower. The U.K. has 81% personal indebtedness, the U.S. 71% and Japan \u2014 which has been trapped in a debt spiral for nearly two decades \u2014 is at 68%.<\/p>\n
Of course, it\u2019s not just ordinary Canadians who are buried in debt. The federal and provincial governments are also consumed. Together, they too are carrying debt of around 100% of GDP.<\/p>\n
Ottawa is the worst at $1.4 trillion in national debt, a doubling since the Liberals came to office in 2015. But together Ontario and Quebec are not far behind at $500 trillion and $300 trillion, respectively. Ontario remains, as it has been for nearly 20 years, the most heavily indebted sub-national government in the world. Among provinces, states and territories, only California comes close and it has more than twice Ontario\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
All that debt \u2014 household and government \u2014 keeps interest rates high and smoothers investment and expansion of businesses. Yet no government in Canada seems in a hurry to curb its spending.<\/p>\n
After promising last spring to never again post a federal budget deficit as large as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s, new Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney run up the largest deficit in Canadian history \u2014 nearly $79 billion, almost $20 billion larger than the last Trudeau deficit. And last year\u2019s $78.9-billion shortfall is to be followed by deficits of greater than $70 billion for at least the next four years.<\/p>\n
But not only have the Carney Liberals failed to stop piling up debt, they have done almost nothing to revive the economy. They set up a major projects office and spent millions on expensive television ads promising to build big again. Yet that has amounted to nothing so far.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
Canada also has the worst grocery inflation in the developed world, the least affordable housing and the slowest growing economy. According to the OECD we are 38th\u00a0of 38 in growth, which is expected to be well under one-percent this year.<\/p>\n
Youth employment remains stubbornly around 15%. Try finding a summer job to finance your education.<\/p>\n
This is not only the fault of our slow-growing economy. In sluggish times, young people are the last to be hired. It is also the fault of foolish federal immigration policy that flooded the labour market with foreign students and temporary workers \u2014 nearly 2 million of them. And while the feds have put some caps on these categories of immigration, there is no way to ensure these people leave when their visas expire. Most don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says small business closures are outpacing new business starts. Last year, nearly five per cent of small businesses closed their doors. The most often cited reasons: high taxes, excessive regulation and smothering red tape.<\/p>\n
The Liberals \u201cgreen\u201d policies continue to scare away investors, too. The Carney government is less preachy on the surface than the Trudeau government, but remains every bit as committed to environmentalism.<\/p>\n
Take for example it\u2019s highly publicized memorandum of understanding with Alberta about building a new pipeline to the West Coast. Carney will only agree to approve a pipeline if Alberta agrees to pay six times the current industrial carbon price which is already pushing investors away.<\/p>\n
British Columbia\u2019s obsession with giving First Nations an effective veto over future development is also a huge impediment to a second pipeline or any other megaproject.<\/p>\n
Yet Mark Carney remains enormously popular, particularly in central Canada, despite the fact that he talks a lot about reducing our dependence on trade with America, but is doing little to improve the Canadian economy.<\/p>\n
Bookmark our website and support our journalism:\u00a0Don\u2019t\u00a0miss the news you need to know \u2014 add\u00a0EdmontonJournal.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0EdmontonSun.com<\/a>\u00a0to your bookmarks and\u00a0sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today:\u00a0The Edmonton Journal<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/a>The Edmonton Sun<\/a>.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, it was revealed that Canadian household debt has reached $2.5 trillion. That\u2019s 103% of GDP and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[6776,7754,125,7755,122,111,3203,2877],"class_list":["post-14570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-blair-gable","tag-federal-budget-deficit","tag-house-of-commons","tag-household-debt","tag-liberals","tag-mark-carney","tag-parliament-hill","tag-prime-minister-justin-trudeau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}