MODEST DEFICITS AND A PROMISE TO RETURN TO BALANCE HAVE ALL CRUMBLED IN A MERE 15 MONTHS.

last year of the government’s mandate. It has all come to naught in a mere 15 months. The Trudeau government has been mugged by reality and its core economic strategy has crumbled.

In spite of spinmeisters’ attempts to muddle the issue, we can agree on one thing. Challenging demography did not suddenly emerge a couple of years ago. In November 2014, the Department of Finance forecasted balanced budgets and the elimination of the federal debt before 2040. That reflected the Conservative government’s prudent approach to fiscal policy, taking into account the impact a bitter history of socialist failures). That green technology can replace fossil fuels at reasonable cost (coal, oil and gas will represent 74 per cent of global energy in 2050 and Ontario’s catastrophic electricity fiasco is ample evidence that ignoring economics and science is doomed to be a costly failure). And that stimulus spending unfailingly produces a multiplier effect in the economy (apparently not, according to Finance forecasts).

The political promises relate to climate change policies that impose job-killing regulatory and tax burdens and preclude the full and timely development of our natural resources (underscored by Trudeau’s latest bombshell that we must “phase out” the oilsands). They include tax policies that reduce competitiveness and affordability. And, of course, spending that quickly spun out of control, most of it unrelated to infrastructure.

The selfishness is in the massive borrowing for current expenditures. By 2045, the Finance Department models project national debt growing to an alarming $1.5 trillion (versus the $11 billion in net assets it forecasted two years ago), saddling our children and grandchildren with a crushing annual interest bill of $82 billion. Parenthetically, it is ironic that millennials, who are most captivated by Justin Trudeau, are least helped by his policies now and will be the most hurt down the road.

Fiscal responsibility need not entail austerity. To the contrary, it enhances prospects for economic growth, providing the means to address Canadians’ critical social needs.

The Finance Department laid out a base case, which can be considerably better or worse, depending on growth, inevitable recessions and unpredictable geopolitical events. But this is the government’s median estimate. It is therefore prepared to live with the results. That is what is so profoundly troubling. policy…

We are a great nation, the leader of the free world. It ill behooves us to require Hong Kong and Taiwan to impose export quotas on textiles to “protect” our textile industry at the expense of U.S. consumers and of Chinese workers … We speak glowingly of the virtues of free trade, while we use our political and economic power to induce Japan to restrict exports of steel and TV sets. We should move unilaterally to free trade, not instantaneously, but over a period of, say, five years, at a pace announced in advance.

Few measures that we could take would to more to promote the cause of freedom at home and abroad than complete free trade … We could say to the rest of the world: we believe in freedom and intend to practice it. We cannot force you to be free. But we can offer full co-operation on equal terms to all. Our market is open to you without tariffs or restrictions. Sell here what you can and wish to. Buy whatever you can and wish to. In that way co-operation among individuals can be worldwide and free.