I have been pissed off and complained to whoever would listen (most of them reluctantly) for years talking about foreign held debt. It’s a big problem and as you point out about to get worse. I truly worry about how economically illiterate the Canadian electorate is.
I fear that far too many Canadians think of public debt as some meaningless number which means absolutely nothing to them and has no effect on their personal well being. Until individual Canadians actually experience some of the negative effects on a personal level the Carneys and Trudeaus will continue to their spendthrift ways. A cause and effect relationship will one day make its presence felt but by then it’ll likely be too late to recover.
I believe Canada needs its own version of DOGE. No doubt Trudeau's reign supplied millions if not billions of 'foreign aid' for some ridiculous scheme. See if you can't find data on that.
Beth, I agree that we do need to cut back in ever so many ways and a version of DOGE may be the best way, but only if it does it's cutting carefully. It seems to me that the US version of DOGE is/has been cutting willy nilly without consideration of consequences or understanding of just what they are cutting. Put differently, they seem to see a big number and say, "Cut it; who cares the merit of the program? Just cut it."
So, thoughtful reduction. Now, having said that, I know that a thoughtful reduction program will have great difficulty as it will allow all the usual suspects to argue to cut "that program, not this program." The issue, to me, is that if you cut willy nilly and eliminate things that are essential you do the whole reduction program a great disservice and reduce the efficacy of that very needed elimination.
Countries no longer matter. What it is all about is carving out the last of the resources available to be carved out of the ground while the proceeds go to the largest investor.. or in other words owner of capital. Not sure the memo was recieved but.. We've lived in a Corporate Fuedalism for the last few hundred years. In that time span it has up till now robbed blind the people who pay "taxes". Corporations don't pay taxes. If they did to any substantial and real benefit then Canada shouldn't have debt at all. So brass tax... Canada is a land that has been plundered and sold off time and time again. When Mulroney was in power he sold us down the creek and no paddle with the setup of NAFTA.. which was already then known to be a sell out to Corporations south of the boarder. Now that we had 30 plus years of economic organization settled on that rip off, it's being dismantled entirely while all the safeguards were sold off in the guise of being a waste of investment opertunity. And who pays the price? Not the people with all the money that is for certain! Bankers and Corporations run this show. When has it ever been any different? Profit over People. When has that not ever been the case? Basic sad truth... Canada can no longer afford Canada. Let's see if we can sell Canada to the Chinese... oh wait.. woops that already happend! Next step... USA domination of our country through brute force and into a newly formed empire of hypocrisy.
Holy Freakin Shyte... well at the end of the day the entire economic structure of the world itself is basically a pyramid scheme unto itself, with the largest capital owners at the top. Who ever decided that leaving the gold standard was a good idea was a total moron. Not all things worth something should be liquidated so we don't have to store or sit on them. Had Canada not sold it's gold reserves starting in the 80's it would be worth twice as much as what we sold it for back then. Could have at least provided debt relief...?? Instead we spent it all and gave it to corporations so they would do business here in Canada. At the end of the day the corporate fuedalism we currently live in is having it's back raked and broken by monopolists and narcasistic oligarchs. Either way the everyday human is enslaved no matter which way you cut the cake.
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
But if Canadian debt is in Canadian currency then what is the worry?
Serious question! Help me out with this…Canada is the only source of $Cdn and the BOC controls interest rates so what is stopping Canada from paying off all its foreign-held bonds? Or letting them mature and not renewing but paying them. The bonds are already an asset, just not as liquid as cash and desirable only because they provide interest to holders…At a rate determined by BOC.
Seems like inflation is more of a concern than debt.
Why include a claim that you later state is unfounded? You're obviously aware not all readers are going to make it to the bottom of the article. Making a claim, and then later stating you have no source for that claim doesn't suddenly make that claim a valid one to present alongside other information presented in good faith. All that does is serve to reinforce negative biases.
I don't think this qualifies as "unfounded" - it's a reasonable assumption that's likely to land in the general ballpark. And readers don't need to stick around all the way to the "bottom of the article" (which is anyway just two short paragraphs later) because the disclaimer is in a linked footnote. All readers need to do is hover over the footnote number.
As a reminder, the majority of the US debut is owned by 5 countries- which means they could bankrupt the country. Canada's debt is indeed mostly owned by Canadian institutions- meaning we are in a much better position. By comparing debt levels to 2015- you are not factoring in a PANDEMIC- meaning all countries increased their debt significantly. But if you wish to play this game, under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin's tenure, the Canadian national debt was reduced significantly, by about $90 billion, and they left a budgetary surplus of $14 billion. In contrast, the Harper government's policies led to a rise in the national debt, with six deficits adding approximately $150 billion to it.
Although I'm not sure I completely understand them, the Statistics Canada numbers I quoted in the article showed "international portfolio investors" owning well over 50% of Canada's public debt.
By the way, Paul Martin is still my favorite finance minister (although nowhere near the top of my "best PM" list).
Thanks for this David!
Thank you for posting this.
I think it's lot worse than your post.
All 2024 numbers and it's from the same link you provided
954 billions is the net financial worth not the debt.
Federal debt securities liability is 1.4 trillion
Consolidated government debt securities liabilities 2.6 trillion
The statistics is confusing because it's incorporated the pension funds.
The consolidated government (federal +provinces + municipal) interest payments were almost 100 billions
Total consolidated taxes around 1 trillion yes 1 trillion.
I have been pissed off and complained to whoever would listen (most of them reluctantly) for years talking about foreign held debt. It’s a big problem and as you point out about to get worse. I truly worry about how economically illiterate the Canadian electorate is.
No more literate than they average American, Frenchman, Brazilian, yadda yadda yadda
I'm inclined to suspect it's difficult to find data because our government isn't interested in sharing details.
I fear that far too many Canadians think of public debt as some meaningless number which means absolutely nothing to them and has no effect on their personal well being. Until individual Canadians actually experience some of the negative effects on a personal level the Carneys and Trudeaus will continue to their spendthrift ways. A cause and effect relationship will one day make its presence felt but by then it’ll likely be too late to recover.
I believe Canada needs its own version of DOGE. No doubt Trudeau's reign supplied millions if not billions of 'foreign aid' for some ridiculous scheme. See if you can't find data on that.
Indeed. I've actually already written about some of the larger foreign aid problems:
https://www.theaudit.ca/p/what-happens-when-ministries-go-rogue
Beth, I agree that we do need to cut back in ever so many ways and a version of DOGE may be the best way, but only if it does it's cutting carefully. It seems to me that the US version of DOGE is/has been cutting willy nilly without consideration of consequences or understanding of just what they are cutting. Put differently, they seem to see a big number and say, "Cut it; who cares the merit of the program? Just cut it."
So, thoughtful reduction. Now, having said that, I know that a thoughtful reduction program will have great difficulty as it will allow all the usual suspects to argue to cut "that program, not this program." The issue, to me, is that if you cut willy nilly and eliminate things that are essential you do the whole reduction program a great disservice and reduce the efficacy of that very needed elimination.
"isn't enough data" wow. Maybe find some data to back up your opinion.
Countries no longer matter. What it is all about is carving out the last of the resources available to be carved out of the ground while the proceeds go to the largest investor.. or in other words owner of capital. Not sure the memo was recieved but.. We've lived in a Corporate Fuedalism for the last few hundred years. In that time span it has up till now robbed blind the people who pay "taxes". Corporations don't pay taxes. If they did to any substantial and real benefit then Canada shouldn't have debt at all. So brass tax... Canada is a land that has been plundered and sold off time and time again. When Mulroney was in power he sold us down the creek and no paddle with the setup of NAFTA.. which was already then known to be a sell out to Corporations south of the boarder. Now that we had 30 plus years of economic organization settled on that rip off, it's being dismantled entirely while all the safeguards were sold off in the guise of being a waste of investment opertunity. And who pays the price? Not the people with all the money that is for certain! Bankers and Corporations run this show. When has it ever been any different? Profit over People. When has that not ever been the case? Basic sad truth... Canada can no longer afford Canada. Let's see if we can sell Canada to the Chinese... oh wait.. woops that already happend! Next step... USA domination of our country through brute force and into a newly formed empire of hypocrisy.
Holy Freakin Shyte... well at the end of the day the entire economic structure of the world itself is basically a pyramid scheme unto itself, with the largest capital owners at the top. Who ever decided that leaving the gold standard was a good idea was a total moron. Not all things worth something should be liquidated so we don't have to store or sit on them. Had Canada not sold it's gold reserves starting in the 80's it would be worth twice as much as what we sold it for back then. Could have at least provided debt relief...?? Instead we spent it all and gave it to corporations so they would do business here in Canada. At the end of the day the corporate fuedalism we currently live in is having it's back raked and broken by monopolists and narcasistic oligarchs. Either way the everyday human is enslaved no matter which way you cut the cake.
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
I believe that we (citizens) have given away our power. Voting is the same as hiring someone to do a job. In this case hiring these people to run the country. Run the country thru the money collected from taxes etc.
They should be accountable for every dollar. Why are allowing Carney to give billions of our dollars to the Ukraine? They all should be fired
But if Canadian debt is in Canadian currency then what is the worry?
Serious question! Help me out with this…Canada is the only source of $Cdn and the BOC controls interest rates so what is stopping Canada from paying off all its foreign-held bonds? Or letting them mature and not renewing but paying them. The bonds are already an asset, just not as liquid as cash and desirable only because they provide interest to holders…At a rate determined by BOC.
Seems like inflation is more of a concern than debt.
Why include a claim that you later state is unfounded? You're obviously aware not all readers are going to make it to the bottom of the article. Making a claim, and then later stating you have no source for that claim doesn't suddenly make that claim a valid one to present alongside other information presented in good faith. All that does is serve to reinforce negative biases.
I don't think this qualifies as "unfounded" - it's a reasonable assumption that's likely to land in the general ballpark. And readers don't need to stick around all the way to the "bottom of the article" (which is anyway just two short paragraphs later) because the disclaimer is in a linked footnote. All readers need to do is hover over the footnote number.
As a reminder, the majority of the US debut is owned by 5 countries- which means they could bankrupt the country. Canada's debt is indeed mostly owned by Canadian institutions- meaning we are in a much better position. By comparing debt levels to 2015- you are not factoring in a PANDEMIC- meaning all countries increased their debt significantly. But if you wish to play this game, under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin's tenure, the Canadian national debt was reduced significantly, by about $90 billion, and they left a budgetary surplus of $14 billion. In contrast, the Harper government's policies led to a rise in the national debt, with six deficits adding approximately $150 billion to it.
Although I'm not sure I completely understand them, the Statistics Canada numbers I quoted in the article showed "international portfolio investors" owning well over 50% of Canada's public debt.
By the way, Paul Martin is still my favorite finance minister (although nowhere near the top of my "best PM" list).