Addressing national concerns
Re: Speech to the throne and PM’S national televised address, Sept. 24
During his address to the nation, Prime Minister Trudeau solemnly observed: “I don’t want you — or your parent, or your friend — to take on debt that your government can better shoulder.” This largesse was reinforced by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in a later interview with CTV News.
It is time to explode a carefully nurtured Trudeau government myth: that growing government debt has no effect on the financial health of Canadians. In fact, governments have no money. None. Their funds come from Canadian taxpayers, personal and corporate; from the sale of government bonds which must be honoured on redemption; and through loans from financial institutions. The fact that interest rates are currently low and the government has debt locked in over a longer term at these low rates does not negate two important facts. Loans must be repaid. And, they must be repaid with interest. That is how financial institutions stay in business.
It is the people of Canada who have to repay this debt with their tax dollars, and pay the billions of dollars in interest charges every year on our now trillion-dollar national debt. What does it cost every year to service a trillion dollars in debt?
When the government of Canada takes on record- level debt it rests on the shoulders of the people of Canada, not the Trudeau government.
Let’s take whatever steps are necessary to address COVID and get the economy back on track. However, let’s not pretend it is the Trudeau government that is generously shouldering the debt burden. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Roy Schneider, Regina
Canada was founded on diversity, but not just the diversity of identity incessantly referred to by the prime minister. A federal state is, by definition, diverse, or it wouldn’t require federating its constituent elements. The provinces and territories are the DNA of Canada’s diversity. At their best, they are crucibles of innovation. Allowing for different approaches to solving common problems gave us universal health care, to cite but one example.
The throne speech treats the provinces and territories as vassals. Yet, many will unjustly accuse them of playing politics at an inhospitable time when they challenge its assumptions. Little good can come of this.
Howard Greenfield, Montreal