National Debt Clock Makes PG Stop
Federal Debt Clock ticks off the dollars- photo 250News
Prince George, B.C. – By the time the Canadian Taxpayer Federation Debt Clock reached Prince George this afternoon, the Federal debt was closing in on $625 billion dollars, and the clock just keeps on ticking.The Debt Clock is on a 6 week, tour that will see it visit 9 provinces. The idea is to raise awareness about the rising public debt burden Canadians are facing, and calling on the Federal government to return to balanced budgets as soon as possible.
But how can you convince Canadians to call for debt reduction when the Nation just elected a government on a platform of deficits? “This is not the sexiest issue in Canada” says CTF Federal Director Aaron Wudrick, “It’s not something Canadians wake up thinking about, that’s one of the reasons we have this clock as a symbol it takes something that ‘in your face’ to get people thinking about it. As for the new government, it’s true they ran on small deficits, and they promised three years only. Look what happened, I warned about that during the campaign. If it was always a case of small deficits and they got them balanced quickly, I don’t think it would be a big concern for many people, but that’s never the case.”
He says it’s up to Canadians to let the government know this is not what they asked for “We didn’t ask for deficits as far as the eye could see. The reality is, it’s about fairness , it’s the young people who are going to have to pay this back. Most parents don’t want to leave debt for their children, they want to leave an inheritance.”
Right now, that Federal Debt means each and every Canadian is carrying the debt to the tune of $17,335.00.
“The federal government is spending $3.3 million per day on interest, and the provinces are spending millions more. This is not responsible, and it is not sustainable. Governments need to learn to live within their means, and stop expecting children and grandchildren to pay their bills for them” said Wudrick.
Wudrick says when people see the National Debt Clock, they are shocked “The average Canadian understands we have debt, but they are always surprised at the size.” He says the number one reaction he gets from folks who see the clock is “Schock at the size.( of the debt) The number at the bottom, the $17 thousand, that’s just federally, you add another $13 thousand ( per person) Provincially so it does start to add up very quickly.
This evening, the National debt clock arrives in Chetwynd, then heads to Fort St. John and Taylor tomorrow.
Comments
Wow, take a good long look at those numbers, because much of it is the legacy of the Harper Conservative’s nearly $160-billion in new national debt. That makes the Harper Conservatives responsible for fully one-quarter of all the outstanding federal debt created since Confederation. It works out to just under $5,000 for every man, woman and newborn child in Canada today.
That’s quite the Conservative legacy! :-(
www .huffingtonpost.ca/ralph-goodale/harper-fiscal-reputation_b_6591064.html
Actually when Harper took over in 2006 the debt was 491B or $15,086 per person. By 2009 Harper had it down to 459B or $13,613 per person. He wanted to stay the course , but the Liberals and NDP threatened to bring down the government if he didn’t start spending. Now we are at 624B which is some of Trudeau’s new debt. The fact is that the debt went up 130B on Harpers watch or a little over $2,000 per person! Google National Debt Clock and watch a year by year value per Canadian.
Unfortunately those are not the facts. All the Liberal progress paying down the debt made before Harper was undone by Harper. Of the ten budgets he posted only the first one (right after the Liberals) had a surplus. The following budgets were deficits, including the last one. NO wonder the debt went through the roof. Why was it o.k. for Harper to add so much to the debt and why is it not o.k. when another government does it for three or four years? Answer: politics.
What are you talking about? At least get the facts right if you tell others they don’t have the facts.
Harper had 9 budgets in office, first two were surplus, last one was surplus.
It was undone because they stopped charging excess UI premiums and we had a global recession. Maybe you didn’t know but that is how the Liberals got their budgets to surplus, by making employees and employers pay for it. Harper had 3 surplus budgets, the last one would have been if we hadn’t opened the check book after the election.
Harper’s “tenth” budget was not allowed to come to a close as we spent like drunken sailors to get 25k refugees here and cut a few large checks – otherwise it was on target to be a surplus. The Liberals were trying to saying it was not going to be surplus regardless if they spent extra cash in mid December because growth was projected to be lower than predicted in the budget. But growth actually turned out to be bang on for December and that was the last you heard of that story line from the Liberals
The debt clock is not hooked into any current ACTUAL spending. It would have a multiplier which likely has not been updated since Harper was defeated.
Oh please JGalt, as cougs79 stated, the Liberals and NDP threatened to bring down the government if he didn’t start spending!
The Liberals and the NDP certainly played a part in any escalation of our national debt and for you or anyone else to ignore or deny that is absolutely ridiculous!
JGalt, you seem to think that you are so informed and as such, you have all the answers. So, please enlighten us as to how Justin is helping our escalating debt, considering that he has massive deficit spending plans without any plans whatsoever to repay the debt he intends to accrue!
All the financial facts can be looked up on the internet, if one is really interested.
Yes, the Cons were forced into it. They had no other choice. Well, except the choice to let their government fail and go back to the polls to try and get a majority mandate by running on “fiscal accountability”.
They didn’t want to risk it though, so they made a strategic decision to run huge deficits. It was their budgets. They passed them. They didn’t HAVE to. They had a choice and they made it. Those are the facts.
True , but they also ushered in the insane 40 year ams , no money down mortgages that they knew the kids and some dumb adults would not be able to resist . There by driving real estate through the roof . Magic money ? A bubble waiting for a pin ?
and by the way JGalt, did you notice that the other G7 Nations weren’t so thrilled to jump on the spending spree that Justin pushed at the recent meetings in Japan?
Nope? Didn’t think so!
So what.
PrinceGeorge is correct, there are multiple sources on the Internet that present the financial facts. Always a good thing to quote multiple reputable sources which support this historic fact; the Harper Conservatives were catastrophic to Canada’s financial well-being.
“Since Harper was elected, the federal debt has increased by over $150 billion, wiping out the reduction in federal debt achieved under Chretien and Martin. Not much to boast about there.”
ht tp://ipolitics.ca/2015/04/19/no-matter-how-you-add-it-up-harpers-fiscal-record-is-a-catastrophe/
Tough to spin this isn’t it?
There was no reduction in debt during the Chretien and Martin reign
Chretien came in with the debt around 450 billion, Harper came in and took over the books around 480 billion.
Sure there was a reduction if you don’t count that Chretien added 120 billion to the debt in his first four years in office.
His “tenth” budget was not allowed to come to a close as we spent like drunken sailors to get 25k refugees here and cut a few large checks – otherwise it was on target to be a surplus. They were saying it was not in mid December because growth was projected to be lower than predicted but they actually turned out to be bang on and that was the last you heard of that story line from the Liberals.
The Parliamentary Budget Office confirmed that Harper left with a surplus. The Liberals own report confirmed it, but Justin and Co. don’t want to talk about it!
Yes, let’s all bitch, moan and whine about whether the Conservatives ran up the debt or not! Let’s debate whether Harper left office in a surplus postion! Let’s all deflect our attention away from the FACT that we now have an idiot at the wheel and the idiot is spending like there’s no tomorrow!
If you are all so concerned about the debt that you think Harper accrued, why are you so silent and accepting of the massive debt that Justin has in store for all of you?
Hmmm, no comment? No surprise!
JGalt, the authors of the article that you post a link to had already collaborated on another article published in September of 2014. Some of what they say in their earlier article seems to contradict what they are now saying in their new article, the one that you allude to!
One of their statements seems interesting:
“In Canada, the federal government has a sustainable fiscal structure built around a relatively small government and a stable debt-to-GDP ratio. That ratio averaged around 33 per cent between 2009-10 and 2012-13, and 29.6 per cent in the three years previous, before the 2008-09 recession.”
JGalt, if you find that interesting, how about another statement from their earlier article:
“Our federal government has a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 33 per cent; under current policies this ratio will continue to fall. The Harper government has set a target of “stabilizing” the debt-to-GDP ratio at 25 per cent by 2021-22. According to the 2014 budget, the debt-to-GDP is expected to fall to 25.5 per cent in 2018-19. As a result, the federal government likely will be under 25 per cent by 2019-20, two years ahead of schedule. It’s a fiscal record all G-7 countries can envy.”
JGalt, how’s that for spin? The very same authors wrote in 2014 that regarding the Harper government: “It’s a fiscal record all G-7 countries can envy”
How’s that for spin??
ht tp://ipolitics.ca/2014/09/23/its-time-to-get-over-our-deficit-phobia-canada/
Doesn’t fit their Con bashing agenda, just like the NDP here in BC some people now say things were rosy in the 90s. Gotta wonder where people’s minds are and how they are sucked in to rumours and inuendo instead of checking the actual facts. I really think Harper was here in PG peeing in people’s porridge.
JGalt, my reply to your comment somehow ended up further down the page and as I wanted to reply to your comment, I have copied and pasted it here for you.
JGalt, the authors of the article that you post a link to had already collaborated on another article published in September of 2014. Some of what they say in their earlier article seems to contradict what they are now saying in their new article, the one that you allude to!
One of their statements seems interesting:
“In Canada, the federal government has a sustainable fiscal structure built around a relatively small government and a stable debt-to-GDP ratio. That ratio averaged around 33 per cent between 2009-10 and 2012-13, and 29.6 per cent in the three years previous, before the 2008-09 recession.”
JGalt, if you find that interesting, how about another statement from their earlier article:
“Our federal government has a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 33 per cent; under current policies this ratio will continue to fall. The Harper government has set a target of “stabilizing” the debt-to-GDP ratio at 25 per cent by 2021-22. According to the 2014 budget, the debt-to-GDP is expected to fall to 25.5 per cent in 2018-19. As a result, the federal government likely will be under 25 per cent by 2019-20, two years ahead of schedule. It’s a fiscal record all G-7 countries can envy.”
JGalt, how’s that for spin? The very same authors wrote in 2014 that regarding the Harper government: “It’s a fiscal record all G-7 countries can envy”
How’s that for spin??
ht tp://ipolitics.ca/2014/09/23/its-time-to-get-over-our-deficit-phobia-canada/
Think basics:
a) the Government goes to the banks to borrow money which the banks have created out of thin air – the money is just bits and bytes in a computer! Now the Government has to pay interest on it which comes from the taxes we pay.
(We won’t mention at this time double digit inflation and double digit interest rates, because that is a bit too scary).
b) the Government creates its own money. It has the power to do so! It is a loan it makes to itself, interest free! No annual interest payments from our tax money have to be made!
The money does not know or care how it was created, bits and bytes do not care.
Bingo!
End of the day people, the debt is just a shell game. Over the past 20 years not all Harper the Governments provided over 397 Billion in tax cuts, grants and tax Subs to industry and large corps inclueing Banks, investment companies and insurance companies. Then borrow to pay for the things we as tax payers say are priority’s like health care education, our seniors, veterans. Any small business person trying to advance or keep their head above water will tell you they don’t get the same attention as others. Everyday the little guy that supports his or her community suffers not because of just tax’s or paper work but they cant compete with corps being grossly backed by Government funding paid by tax payers money. Get a grip or put your head up your ass and fart.
That’s exactly what it is ~”…a shell game”. The ONLY way it could actually be paid down at present would be to continually have a so-called “favourable” balance of trade internationally. Where we export more ‘real wealth’ (actual things) than what we receive back in alternate real wealth, and get international credits for the difference. But that has its own set of problems. Since an influx of international credits used to ‘buy’ Canadian dollars increases the exchange rate of the Canuck buck, making our exports more expensive and pricing them out of global markets. There’s also the other little problem ~ if you’re continually exporting more real wealth than you’re importing in alternate real wealth your country is becoming physically poorer, not richer.
If the National Debt WERE to be ‘paid down’ under the current financial arrangements WITHOUT an excess of exports over imports, all that happens is it’s shifted elsewhere. Either the Provinces, or businesses, or individuals, (and most likely all three), will have to bear increased debts that equal the amount the National Debt is reduced by.
The National Debt Clock mobile unit is here! I had no idea there was such a mobile thing – travel to our two staunchly Conservative ridings North and South must have been banned by micro managing for the decade!
I read about tax relief for corporations and very high income earners (the top 10%) but what about the slashing of funding for the arts and culture, women’s organizations, veterans’ offices, coastal rescue stations…and so forth?
Perhaps we did save a few bucks when Canada lost its seat on the UN Security Council.
It’s brought to us compliments of the Canadian taxpayers federation . Jason Kenny just finished his gig there . I imagine his pockets are fuller now . Look them up at Wikipedia . What a rouges gallery . Whining about taxes out of one side of their mouths while raising them out of the other . Oh canada . The crew of the clock are probably sleeping over at Ezra’s tonite ya all .
The real problem with the National Debt is that it is NOT simply just a debt, like any other debt we’re all familiar with, but also takes the role of being a necessary “distributing agent” to inject needed new money into the economy.
Under the current conventions of accounting we have no such device that acts nationally as the equivalent of every business’s Capital Account. So we never get a true accounting of the nation’s ASSETS, all we ever see are its LIABILITIES.
No matter who forms government, it is undeniable that our total ASSETS are growing at a faster rate than our LIABILITIES. If they weren’t, physical progress would be impossible ~ we’d be going backwards. And we clearly aren’t. Nationally we increase our Assets yearly, in total, at a greater rate than they’re depreciating and obsolescing, in total. And that’s without even counting the increase in the value of ‘intangibles’ ~ things which are not physical assets, but carry an increased value year by year anyways, (things like education, new discoveries, etc.)
What we should have is the government do its books the same way businesses do. With a properly constructed National Balance Sheet showing ASSETS, LIABILITIES, and most importantly, CAPITAL (or Citizens’ Equity ~ our ‘share’ of this enterprise we call Canada). If our Assets annually grow faster than our Liabilities, we should be getting dividends back from the government. Not being hit with more and more taxes to continue a deceptive accounting system.
Must be some of you LIKE paying taxes. Just let things continue as they have long, (too long), been, and you’ll be paying plenty of them. Both directly, and through the most pernicious form of taxation ever to be inflicted on any populace ~ inflation.
The tax on your savings. Course that won’t matter, I suppose, ’cause you won’t have any!
Just ask yourselves this. If the government took 100% of your income in taxes, not just the 43% it’s said to take now (in total, on average), could the government then provide you with everything it already provides you with PLUS everything you now provide for yourself? And do that out of what it was collecting off you? For how could it then go into debt if it couldn’t? It’s already got 100% of your income, how would the debt be re-paid?
Recognise that the National Debt is created when the banking system ‘loans’ the government money, generally by buying some government debt issue. This money is CREATED by the banking system. It’s not taken from anyone’s bank account, no one brought it into the bank for the bank to loan out, it’s entirely a new bank creation of CREDIT.
Bank loans, and the purchase of securities by any bank create bank deposits in the name of the borrower. The repayment of these loans, or redemption of the securities from the banks, DESTROYS those bank deposits. What came essentially “out of nothing”, goes back to “nothing” at the end of the process.
If you somehow were to tax enough money away from the public of Canada and put the amount collected to repaying the National Debt, that amount of ‘money’ would simply disappear. It would be destroyed as money.
IF, as is actually the case, there were collectively goods and services for sale in the Canadian economy with a PRICE TAG on them in ‘money’, there would then be no possibility all those goods and services could ever be sold at that price. Unless an equivalent amount of money that had just been destroyed were again re-borrowed. But who, other than the government, COULD ever borrow that much money?
The Government has the power and authority to create its own money and lend it to itself at zero interest. The banks charge the Government interest on money that the banks create out of thin air, or more correctly stated, out of a few key strokes on a computer.
Learn more about the Federal Reserve and a gentleman by the name of Woodrow Wilson!
If the debt is not repaid like a minimum monthly payment on a credit card we are paying interest on top of interest. Adding to the debt makes it worse if the minimum payment is not made to prevent compound interest. A credit card company must now make debtors aware of the fact that if only the monthly minimum is paid, the loan will take x number of years to be paid off in full, like 20 years or more.
So it is with the National Debt. Instead of building infrastructure we are making sure – by borrowing from the banks – that banks make 10 or 12 billion a year in profit – if it is less than that they call it a bad year!
It will never happen that the Government would create its own money instead and pay off the whole national debt all at once. The result would be that the Government now owes to itself an interest free debt equivalent to what it owed to the banks. Then it can just let it sit there until hell freezes over!
Yes, Prince George, the government does have that power. But it doesn’t use it. Why? Because ‘credit issue’ and ‘price making’ are the positive and negative sides of the same thing. And IF the government were to do as it clearly has the power to do, it would also have to either, (a.)increase taxes greatly to try to recover all the money it or its own Bank of Canada had just created ‘interest free’, or we would get an inflation worse than we’re familiar with; or, (b.) implement strict wage and price controls nationally. Something that has never worked anywhere there’s been a semblance of democracy in a peacetime economy, and didn’t even work all that well most places in a more draconian wartime one.
The “interest” paid on government debt is not all profit to keep for the banks. Most of it is spent back into the general economy.
The problem doesn’t lie with “interest” in any case. It lies with the fact that the economy is currently not capable of being fully financially ‘self-liquidating’ as each continuing cycle of production flows through into final consumption.
The Government gets money from the banks which created it out of thin air. When it has been paid back to the banks (including interest charges) it ceases to exist. The slate is wiped clean.
Or, the Government uses its own power and authority to create its own money, lending the money to itself interest free. That has the effect of not being on the hook for compound interest. Quite an annual saving, wouldn’t you say?
The banks got their money back, their slate is wiped clean.
Now the Government can use this annual saving – billions – to slowly extinguish its own debt.
Or it can just let the debt sit their for whatever time it decides.
No, it won’t work that way, Prince George. Aside from the fact that previous governments, most of them Liberal btw, have agreed with other governments of countries with whom we do a lot of trade that we will not use the Bank of Canada that way, (nor they their own central banks either), such a move would put any government doing it in an unassailable position in regards to its electorate.
Their citizens would have no sanction whatsoever over it, it could spend all the money it created with complete reckless abandon, and experience elsewhere suggests that is exactly what would happen.
Prices, which are the alter ego of credit creation, would go through the roof.
IF a government wanted to reduce the National Debt the best way to do it would be to use new credit in a way that LOWERS consumer product prices to CONSUMERS (all of us) at the point of final retail.
This would enable the ongoing total flow of consumer incomes, which is declining overall as technology continually displaces labor, to more closely equate to the flow of prices being generated as ALL costs, many of which now do not distribute any incomes to anyone IN THE SAME CYCLE OF PRODUCTION/CONSUMPTION, flow through into them.
What is so phoney about the National Debt is the pretense that it is capable of being repaid, when it is a verifiable FACT it cannot be. Not with the current way governments do their books in place.
This is because our economy is NOT currently capable of being fully financially ‘self-liquidating’. No modern industrial economy with continuing ‘labor displacement’ is. That is why they are ALL so anxious for what is currently deemed international ‘free trade’. It’s a fool’s game. A real ‘race to the bottom’ if ever there was one. And I’m not in any way against international trade, nor even actual free trade. But that’s not what we’re getting.
Each country is competing for some other country’s ‘money’. Not to buy that country’s goods or services, in exchange for what we’ve sold them, which is really all any national currency IS good for in THAT country (not elsewhere ~ we don’t buy stuff in Canada with Japanese yen, or British pounds, or Mexican pesos ~ we need CANADIAN money to do that. And Canadian money would be just as useless for that purpose in those countries as their money is here.)
But we need it to have an excuse for the Bank of Canada to make some more ‘money’ here. To cover a DEFICIENCY between collective ‘prices’ of goods and services for sale here, and the total amount of ‘money’ available to the public to buy them. That deficiency grows ever larger with each passing year. And that will continue, so long as governments FAIL to understand and address the REAL problem. It won’t matter a whit which Party forms those governments ~ none of them will govern long successfully til they do address it.
Yes most on this site like paying taxes. Note the carbon tax. In Alberta the tax will increase taxes on the average household by a thousand dollars. A sneaky way to increase taxes to a money strapped economy under the guise of saving mother earth, but hey no sales tax. Oh the supposedly effect on temperature is calculated to be .oooo1 degree, wow.
Oh another way for Alberta to save money is stop the billions in subsidies to so called none traditional renewable.
Look at Ontario the murcuric rise in ele trical price is driving industry out.
What has that got to do with the National Debt and the Clock? Nothing.
Nothing, really! More taxes, higher costs, industry leaving, billions upon billions given away in subsidies all equals more debt.
Nothing, really!
I was told once, by an Albertan, that Property Taxes there are considerably higher than in BC, and this makes up for their lack of a Provincial Sales Tax. Whether that’s so or not, I really couldn’t say, never lived in Alberta.
Prince George:- “So it is with the National Debt. Instead of building infrastructure we are making sure – by borrowing from the banks – that banks make 10 or 12 billion a year in profit – if it is less than that they call it a bad year!”
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It may come as some surprise to you, Prince George, but if bank profits were taken as a percentage of their primary ‘sales’ (lending money) they’ve been steady decline for quite a long time. This is why we’re now dinged with all the ‘fees’ they levy for everything from holding an account with them to every time you move money into it or out of it, and God only knows what else. This phenomenon is NOT unique to the big banks, but actually affects ALL businesses. It is a primary cause of corporate concentration. It happens because the economy is not, and cannot currently be under the present conventions of accounting, fully financially ‘self-liquidating’. That leads to a build up of debt which can’t be repaid. To any Bank “as a business” that’s as big a problem as it is to any other kind of business.
To distribute money to build infrastructure creates COSTS which have to be recovered through either prices or taxes. It is really no solution the way it’s currently being done ~ no matter who does it, Liberal or Conservative, or anyone else. The only solution is to issue debt-free ‘credit’ to consumers which DON’T create any NEW costs, but are sufficient in total on an ongoing basis to allow the full liquidation of existing costs. This could easily be done by rebating consumer product prices by the ratio that total national production exceeds total national consumption.
Look at the crux of the situation. National governments in all the modern, industrially developed countries currently have to continually transmute the otherwise unrepayable ‘floating’ debts of the private sector into the permanently unrepayable ‘fixed’ debts of the public one in order for business to be carried on.
IF they fail to do this, as some above have suggested the Conservatives would have liked to do, and had acted ‘fiscally responsible’ and maintained balanced Budgets from 2008 on, the devastating effects of the past recession would have been far more severe and far reaching than they were. You cannot restore ‘prosperity’ through ‘austerity’ ~ no one can. Nor can you restore it through wanton and reckless spending. To their credit they avoided that as much as possible. That will only lead, of necessity, to higher taxes, and a reduced purchasing power for every dollar you earn or possess.
Recognise what ‘prosperity’ actually is. It is when your standard of living rises FASTER than your cost of living. When, since the 1960’s, in BC at least, have we had that? NEVER. Our standard of living, for most of us, has increased. But our cost of living has gone up far, far, more. And it continues to outpace our standard of living, and more of us are falling by the wayside.
The difference has been bridged by exponentially increasing DEBT. Consumer, business, and governmental. WHY? Why do we ever put up with this nonsense?
It is as utterly stupid as people starving in the depths of the 1930’s Depression while food was being wantonly destroyed in front of them because no one could, or would, change the way the accounting was being done. The capacity to ‘produce’ far exceeded the ability or even desire to ‘consume’. But did this lead, as it should have led, to FALLING prices for consumers, so they could afford what fewer and fewer of them were needed as producers to produce? No.
The ‘figures’ are supposed to REFLECT the ‘facts’. The physical facts of production and consumption. Not DETERMINE them. For they’re going to constantly be unable to do that. They give a false reading. There’s a flaw, a correctable flaw, in the accounting as it applies to the economy as a whole. It causes us, at the government level, for example, to account our Assets as Liabilities. And pay, and pay again, for that which we’ve already paid for.
It must truly tax the mind of government bureaucrats finding more excuses for levying still more taxes, that only then put us that much further into the hole they’re telling us they’re going to get us out of. What will it be after the ‘carbon’ scam has given them all the mileage they can get out of it? One can only wonder.
They should rename this clock to the Govt Mismanagement Clock.
They cannot help but ‘mismanage’ when they don’t possess or use the proper accounting needed for them to manage. In BC, the only Premier we’ve ever had who realised that was WAC Bennett.
Bennett, seven years after he took office, put on a great show in Lake Okanagan when he fired a flaming arrow into a pile of BC Government Bonds, (the arrow actually fell harmlessly into the Lake ~ someone on the back side of the barge lit the bond pile with a lighter!), and claimed that the BC government was completely ‘debt free’.
The illusion was that through ‘good management’ his government had managed to pay off the Provincial Debt. It hadn’t. Not in the sense most people believed it had.
What Bennett HAD done was ‘transfer’ that debt to various Crown corporations and Authorities which then COULD USE PROPER ACCOUNTING, (like any other business does), to manage it.
It changed what had been ‘direct’ government debt into what was termed ‘contingent liabilities’. It was, as far as he went, (and he, but for the fact that BC is not constitutionally sovereign in affairs of credit and currency and banking, could have gone a lot further), an example of utterly brilliant management.
The debt is bad, but looking at debt to GDP looks alot better now (around 35%) then it did 15 to 20 years ago in the 60 to 70% area.
Harper had it stabilized down in the 29% to 33% range!
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