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.
Thanks for this David!
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.
"isn't enough data" wow. Maybe find some data to back up your opinion.
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.
"as of Q4 2024, that number would be nearly $954 billion. That’s compared with the $621 billion we owed back in 2025" I assume this is a typo.
Yup. It should be "owed back in 2015". I fixed it in the web version.
Thanks,
And thanks very much also to you for yet another excellent data-driven post.