QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Interest Costs on Federal Debt
May 30, 2023
My question is for the government leader. Now that we have confirmed from the answer you have given the Leader of the Opposition here in the Senate that your government doesn’t care much about dealing with foreign interference, let’s try another subject matter, which is the record that your government has set when it comes to food banks in this country and the pummelling that the middle class and the poor are receiving in light of these terrible economic policies of your government.
I am going back to a question I asked before the break, and I’m hoping, now that you have had a week to reflect on it and maybe go to your Liberal colleagues in the Prime Minister’s office or maybe even called your Minister of Finance, you can answer the question. It’s a simple question. Can you tell the Senate and Canadians how much your government, the Trudeau government, is paying in interest payments on the debt for this fiscal year?
Thank you for your question. Again, the attribution to the government for the problems of food banks really beggars belief. The cost of living for Canadians is a serious issue and should be addressed in a serious way by serious people.
The fact is the government has invested properly and prudently in assisting Canadians. Canada’s economic performance remains enviable, and the government’s position is that the cost to manage the debt is easily managed by virtue of the strength of the Canadian economy and is more than amply justified by the good work and measures that it has introduced for the benefit of Canadians.
Government leader, it is really remarkable that three weeks after getting this question, you can’t answer in a transparent and honest forthwith fashion. It’s not a complicated question.
I think I understand why your government refuses to answer the question. I would be embarrassed as well if I were part of a government that is paying $44 billion of interest this fiscal year on the debt that you have doubled since you have come into power. I would be ashamed to actually come up with that number. You have had ample opportunity to answer the question.
I can understand the shame, because in this fiscal year your government is about to spend as much money on the interest on the national debt as you are in health transfer payments, which explains why one in five Canadians — and I would venture to say one in four in some provinces — don’t even have a family doctor.
I have another question for you, and it’s an even simpler one. If you look at this current fiscal situation, your government’s spending is almost even on interest payments on the debt and health transfer payments.
In 2015, I was a member of this chamber when the government at the time was spending $27 billion in interest payments on debt that previous governments had accumulated. It was less than two thirds of what they were paying in health transfer payments to the provinces.
If you weren’t a Liberal government representative in this chamber and you were an average Canadian, which one of those two fiscal pictures would you prefer to have as a Canadian citizen?
Thank you for your question. I think Canadian citizens answered those questions in a series of elections.
The fact is, colleagues, that the investments that this government has made with the support of all parties in this place and in the other place through the pandemic and through our recovery have resulted in Canada emerging from that worldwide crisis with a strong economy and well positioned for the future. The investments that this government has made to help Canadians through the difficult economic times that we’re experiencing, whether in food prices or housing costs, have also helped Canadians escape or at least mitigate the worst impacts of that.
This is a question for which neither the government, nor I as the government’s representative, should be ashamed.
It is an appropriate exercise of good government to help Canadians through difficult times and to make sure that the economy is well positioned to withstand and flourish in the uncertain days, months and years ahead.
