QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Interest Costs on Federal Debt
May 28, 2024
Senator Gold, in 2015, the Trudeau government came into power. You inherited a balanced budget, and you had a debt of $619 billion. In just eight and a half years, you haven’t balanced a single budget, the country’s debt is now over $1.4 trillion, and interest payments alone over the next year will be over $54 billion. You will spend more on interest on the Trudeau debt than you will be spending in health transfer payments to the provinces.
Will you once and for all acknowledge, Senator Gold, that the Trudeau economic strategy has been a failure? Some might even call it a catastrophe.
The answer is no. You have asked this question before, and I have answered this question before. But because, clearly, it is of interest, I will answer it again.
The management of this economy through the pandemic, emerging from the pandemic has been prudent, responsible and productive. Notwithstanding the global slowdown that all countries experienced for the reasons to which I just alluded, Canada’s economy is strong and resilient. Inflation is down to 2.7% — down from 8.1% in July of 2022. We have recovered 130% of the jobs lost since the peak of the pandemic compared to 118% in the United States. Labour force participation rate is at 65.6%, well above the U.S. rate at 62.6%. We have a record high 85.7% labour force participation rate for women in their prime working years.
Senator Gold, inflation is at 2.9%. You guys are doing victory laps. It has calmed down marginally over the past few weeks, but you’ve set records in terms of inflation over the last seven years. As a result, Canadians are poorer than ever, the cost of living is reaching historic heights and you have a generation of Canadians living in the basements of their parents’ homes. At some point, get your heads out of the sand and accept that your economies are failing. Will you cut the carbon tax, start reeling in the mismanagement and overspending of this government and become fiscally responsible once and for all?
I don’t agree with your analysis nor with the attempt to offer the slimmest of policy options or alternatives to deal with what is a complicated and important matter.
According to all reasonable, objective and — dare I say — small “c” conservative analysts, cutting the carbon tax has a modest, negligible impact to the cost of living compared with all the other forces — and you know that. You ought to know that.
