Trudeau has more than doubled Canada’s debt while Canadians get poorer

46 percent of Canadians are a few hundred dollars away from not being able to meet their financial obligations… 400,000 more Canadians live in poverty now compared to 2020.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has more than doubled Canada’s national debt, but Canadian’s quality of life has only decreased.

According to calculations from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), Canada’s national debt has more than doubled since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, reaching a total of $1.239 trillion.

“Canadians can’t afford another decade-and-a-half debt binge,” Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director, said in a . “Trudeau needs to stop wasting so much money and balance the books, because it’s wrong to waste billions on debt interest payments.”

When Trudeau took office in November 2015, Canada’s federal debt was just $616 billion.

Despite this doubling of the national debt, the Trudeau government does not plan to balance the budget until 2040, according to supplementary data from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO). 

Currently, every Canadian owes $31,000 of the debt, however, interest charges between now and the time the budget is balanced in 2040 will mean that the number is much higher. By 2040, interest charges on the federal debt will have cost taxpayers a whopping $847 billion, meaning each Canadian will owe an additional $18,000. 

“Waiting until 2040 to balance the budget is outrageous and the government won’t even hit that target if the economy has a hiccup or politicians can’t say no to new spending,” Terrazzano said. “This government has given taxpayers every reason to believe it will never balance the budget.”

While the national debt has skyrocketed, and the government continues to spend money hand-over-fist, the quality of living for Canadians is plummeting. Instead of addressing this, Trudeau continues to send tax dollars to Ukraine and subsidizing a variety of ideologically motivated causes that provide no material benefit to Canadians.

In July, a survey found that a massive 46 percent of Canadians are a few hundred dollars away from not being able to meet their financial obligations.

LifeSiteNews reported that fast-rising food costs in Canada have led to many people feeling a sense of “hopelessness and desperation” with nowhere to turn for help, according to the Canadian government’s own National Advisory Council on Poverty.

At the same time Canadians are being driven into poverty, housing prices have skyrocketed, with a recent analysis estimating that a Canadian household now has to spend an unprecedented 63.5% of its income to afford a mortgage.

At the same time, criminal incidents under the Trudeau government have increased 20 percent, with critics placing the blame on Trudeau’s “catch and release” policy, which allows dangerous criminals to walk free on bail.

Indeed, this policy has put many Canadians in danger, as was the case last month when a Brampton man charged with sexually assaulting a 3-year-old was reportedly out on bail for an October 2022 incident in which he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a dangerous weapon. 

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, a well-known Ottawa think tank warned that Canada’s justice system is unable to keep up with out-of-control crime that has risen sharply in the last few decades to the point where the national murder rate is at its highest in 30 years.

Up Next

BC NDP, Conservatives’ drug policies converge in close election

Don't Miss

Liberal House Leader tells gov’t-funded media they must ‘scrutinize’ Conservatives

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Elon Musk praises families on X: ‘We should teach fear of childlessness,’ not pregnancy

Frontier Centre for Public Policy / 4 hours ago

It’s Time To Stop Church Arsons And What Fuels Them

DEI / 12 hours ago

University System of Georgia to ban DEI, commit to neutrality, teach Constitution

Business

Taxpayer watchdog calls Trudeau ‘out of touch’ for prioritizing ‘climate change’ while families struggle

Published on November 23, 2024

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The prime minister told a G20 panel this week that fighting so-called ‘climate change’ should be more important to families than putting food on the table or paying rent.

Canada’s leading taxpayer watchdog blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for being completely “out of touch” with everyday Canadians after the PM earlier this week suggested his climate “change” policies, including a punitive carbon tax, are more important for families than trying to stay financially afloat.

In speaking to LifeSiteNews, Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) federal director Franco Terrazzano said Trudeau’s recent comments show his government “continues to prove it’s out of touch with its carbon tax.”

“Canadians don’t support the carbon tax because we know it makes life more expensive and it doesn’t help the environment,” Terrazzano told LifeSiteNews.

Terrazzano’s comments come after Trudeau told a G20 panel earlier this week that fighting so-called “climate change” should be more important to families than putting food on the table or paying rent.

Speaking to the panel, Trudeau commented that it is “really, really easy” to “put climate change as a slightly lower priority” when one has “to be able to pay the rent this month” or “buy groceries” for their “kids,” but insisted that “we can’t do that around climate change.”

Terrazzano said that the Trudeau government’s carbon tax in reality “impacts nearly all aspects of life in Canada by making it more expensive to fuel up our cars, heat our homes and buy food.”

“The carbon tax also puts a huge hole in our economy that we can’t afford,” he said to LifeSiteNews, adding that if Trudeau really wanted to help Canadians and “prove it understands the struggles facing Canadians,” then it should “scrap the carbon tax to make life more affordable.”

On Thursday, Trudeau, who is facing abysmal polling numbers, announced he would introduce a temporary pause on the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) for some goods.

Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre this afternoon said about Trudeau’s temporary tax holiday that if he is serious about helping Canadians, he would cut the carbon tax completely.

“What a ridiculous gimmick. Bribing Canadians temporarily with borrowed money,” Bernier wrote.

“When the real solution is to stop growing the bureaucracy, cut wasteful spending, stop sending billions to Ukraine, eliminate subsidies to businesses and activist groups, stop creating new unsustainable and unconstitutional social programs, eliminate the deficit, and THEN, cut taxes for real. None of which he will do of course.”

As reported by LifeSiteNews, a survey found that nearly half of Canadians are just $200 away from financial ruin as the costs of housing, food and other necessities has gone up massively since Trudeau took power in 2015.

In addition to the increasing domestic carbon tax, LifeSiteNews reported last week that Minister of Environment Steven Guilbeault wants to create a new “global’ carbon tax applied to all goods shipped internationally that could further drive-up prices for families already struggling with inflated costs.

Not only is the carbon tax costing Canadian families hundreds of dollars annually, but Liberals also have admitted that the tax has only reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 1 percent.

Economy

COP 29 leaders demand over a $1 trillion a year in climate reparations from ‘wealthy’ nations. They don’t deserve a nickel.

Published on November 23, 2024

Todayville

From Energy Talking Points

By Alex Epstein

The injustice of climate reparations

COP 29 is calling for over $1 trillion in annual climate reparations

A major theme of COP 29 is that the world should set a “New Collective Quantified Goal” wherein successful nations pay poor nations over $1 trillion a year to 1) make up for climate-related harm and 2) build them new “green energy” economies. In other words, climate reparations.¹
What would $1 trillion a year in climate reparations mean for you and your family?Assuming the money was paid equally by households considered high income (>$50 per day), your household would have to pay more than $5,000 a year in climate reparations taxes!²
Climate reparations are based on two false assumptions:1. Free, wealthy countries, through their fossil fuel use, have made the world worse for poor countries.
2. The poor world’s main problem is dealing with climate change, which wealth transfers will help them with.

But free, fossil-fueled countries have made life better for poor countries

Free, wealthy countries, through their fossil fuel use, have not made the world worse for poor countries—they have made it far, far better.Observe what has happened to global life expectancies and income as fossil fuel use has risen. Life has gotten much better for everyone.³
The wealthy world’s fossil fuel use has improved life worldwide because by using fossil fuel energy to be incredibly productive, we have 1) made all kinds of goods cheaper and 2) been able to engage in life-saving aid, particularly in the realms of food, medicine, and sanitation.
Without the historic use of fossil fuels by the wealthy world, there would be no super-productive agriculture to feed 8 billion humans, no satellite-based weather warning systems, etc. Most of the individuals in poor countries would not even be alive today.

Free, fossil-fueled countries have made the poor safer from climate

The wealthy world’s fossil fuel use has been particularly beneficial in the realm of climate.Over the last 100 years, the death rate from climate-related disasters plummeted by 98% globally.
A big reason is millions of lives saved from drought via fossil-fueled crop transport.⁴
The “climate reparations” movement ignores the fact that the wealthy world’s fossil fuel use has made life better, including safer from climate, in the poor world.This allows it to pretend that the poor world’s main problem is dealing with rising CO2 levels.

The poor world’s problem is poverty, not rising CO2 levels

The poor world’s main problem is not rising CO2 levels, it is poverty—which is caused by lack of freedom, including the crucial freedom to use fossil fuels.Poverty makes everything worse, including the world’s massive natural climate danger and any danger from more CO2.
While it’s not true that the wealthy world has increased climate danger in the poor world—we have reduced it—it is true that the poor world is more endangered by climate than the wealthy world is.The solution is for the poor to get rich. Which requires freedom and fossil fuels.⁵

Escaping poverty requires freedom and fossil fuels

Every nation that has risen out of poverty has done so via pro-freedom policies—specifically, economic freedom.
That’s how resource-poor places like Singapore and Taiwan became prosperous. Resource-rich places like Congo have struggled due to lack of economic freedom.
Even China, which is unfree in many ways (including insufficient protections against pollution) dramatically increased its standard of living via economic freedom—particularly in the realm of industrial development where it is now in many ways much freer than the US and Europe.
A crucial freedom involved in rising prosperity has been the freedom to use fossil fuels.Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy, providing energy that’s low-cost, reliable, versatile, and scalable to billions of people in thousands of places.⁶
Time and again nations have increased their prosperity, including their safety from climate, via economic freedom and fossil fuels.Observe the 7X increase in fossil fuel use in China and India over the past 4 decades, which enabled them to industrialize and prosper.⁷
For the world’s poorest people to be more prosperous and safer from climate, they need more freedom and more fossil fuels.The “climate reparations” movement seeks to deny them both.
The wealthy world should communicate to the poor world that economic freedom is the path to prosperity, and encourage the poor world to reform its cultural and political institutions to embrace economic freedom—including fossil fuel freedom.Our leaders are doing the opposite.

Climate reparations pay off dictators to take away fossil fuel freedom

Instead of promoting economic freedom, including fossil fuel freedom, wealthy climate reparations advocates like Antonio Guterres are offering to entrench anti-freedom regimes by paying off their dictators and bureaucrats to eliminate fossil fuel freedom.This is disgusting.⁸
The biggest victim of “climate reparations” will be the world’s poorest countries, whose dictators will be paid off to prevent the fossil fuel freedom that has allowed not just the US and Europe but also China and India to dramatically increase their prosperity.
The biggest beneficiary of “climate reparations” will be China, which is already emitting more CO2 than the US and Europe combined. (Though less per capita.)While we flagellate and cripple ourselves, China will use fossil fuels in its quest to become the world’s superpower.⁹
The second biggest beneficiary of “climate reparations” will be corrupt do-gooders who get to add anti-fossil-fuel strings to “reparations” dollars and dictate how it’s spent—which will surely include lots of dollars for unreliable solar panels and wind turbines made in China.

Leaders must reject reparations and champion fossil fuel freedom

We need leaders in the US and Europe who proudly:1. Champion the free world’s use of fossil fuels as an enormous good for the world, including its climate safety.
2. Encourage the poor world to embrace economic freedom and fossil fuels.

Tell your Representative to do both.

Popular links

EnergyTalkingPoints.com: Hundreds of concise, powerful, well-referenced talking points on energy, environmental, and climate issues.
My new book Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less.
Speaking and media inquiries

“Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein” is my free Substack newsletter designed to give as many people as possible access to concise, powerful, well-referenced talking points on the latest energy, environmental, and climate issues from a pro-human, pro-energy perspective.

Subscribe to Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein

Share Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein

1 Scientific American – COP27 Summit Yields ‘Historic Win’ for Climate Reparations but Falls Short on Emissions Reductions

UN News – UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Tuesday for countries to step up contributions to a financial mechanism to assist developing countries affected by climate change.

Phys.org – COP29 climate finance deal ‘must cover loss and damage,’ experts urge

COP29 official website – Fund for responding to Loss and Damage ready to accept contributions

2 Global population was about 8.02 billion in 2023.

World Bank data

About 7% of world population are considered high income, which translates into about 562 million individuals. Considering 3 people per average household in high income households, this translates into about 187 million households.
Pew Research – Are you in the global middle class? Find out with our income calculator

$1 trillion per annum paid by 187 million households means the average household would pay about $5,300 per year.

3 Maddison Database 2010 at the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Groningen

World Bank Data

Scripps Institution of Oceanography – The Keeling Curve

G. Marland, T.A. Boden, and R.J. Andres, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions

4 UC San Diego – The Keeling Curve

For every million people on earth, annual deaths from climate-related causes (extreme temperature, drought, flood, storms, wildfires) declined 98%–from an average of 247 per year during the 1920s to 2.5 in per year during the 2010s.

Data on disaster deaths come from EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium – www.emdat.be (D. Guha-Sapir).

Population estimates for the 1920s from the Maddison Database 2010, the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Groningen. For years not shown, population is assumed to have grown at a steady rate.

Population estimates for the 2010s come from World Bank Data.