The Disastrous Liberal Budget Will Make You & Canada Poorer

By Spencer Fernando, Exclusive to the National Citizens Coalition

The Liberals have unveiled a budget that not only fails to address Canada’s major problems, but will make those problems even worse.

Somehow, they managed to dramatically increase spending without doing anything to strengthen Canada’s crumbling military, and announced no new funding for law enforcement to fight violent crime at a time when our cities are becoming more and more dangerous.

Taxes are being hiked, deficits are up, more debt will be added, and even the debt-to-GDP ratio -- which the Liberals love to hide behind -- is expanding.

Respected economist David Rosenberg gave the budget “a big fat F”:

“Canada’s budget gets a big fat F. The tax bite expands. Spending out of control – an added $42bn in the next 5 yrs brings the cumulative burst since 2021 to $345bn! FY24 deficit’s to balloon to $40bn from last Fall’s estimate of $30.6bn and debt/GDP ratio up to 43.5% from 42.4%.”

Before the budget, the most recent fiscal update had Canada on the path to a balanced budget, something that is now pushed back (and will continue to be pushed back indefinitely under the Liberals).

The budget represents incredible economic illiteracy and cynicism on the part of the government – as they are ‘fighting’ rising food prices by giving out borrowed money (they falsely claim it’s a ‘grocery rebate’). This will lead to more money chasing the same amount of goods, thus driving inflation even higher.

In response, the Bank of Canada will be forced to either hike interest rates again or allow inflation to stay far above its target. Either way, Canadians lose out, as purchasing power will erode directly through inflation, or indirectly through more money going towards debt servicing costs.

The broader problem is that this latest Liberal budget is an explicitly statist program, designed to continue expanding the role of government while the beleaguered private sector falls behind. 

Canada’s productivity has been stagnant for a long time, and our per capita GDP is barely any better than it was a decade ago.

The few ‘big’ announcements the government made in relation to expanded production were bought with gigantic taxpayer-funded subsidies, and the expansion of our critical mineral mining sector owes more to US pressure and US investment than it does to anything our own government has done.

The expansion of taxes on high-earning Canadians will certainly be politically popular with some, but it sends the wrong message at a time when Canada should be promoting the incentivization of those who generate wealth, rather than extracting more of that wealth to fuel out-of-control government spending.

Canada can ill-afford to show hostility towards the private sector, yet that is exactly what the Liberal government is doing. 

As noted by Canadian Chamber of Commerce President Perrin Beatty, the government is treating Canadian businesses like a problem:

“Our country cannot borrow its way to prosperity,” Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said. “Canada’s businesses are anxious to do their part, but the federal government needs to see them as partners, not problems, in building a more successful Canada.”

He said later on BNN Bloomberg that the government was “writing cheques on a bank account that’s already overdrawn.”

The Liberal government continues to show a profound lack of faith in the Canadian private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit of Canadians. They seem to think that nothing can happen unless the government makes it happen, which is disrespectful to Canadians, and counterproductive when it comes to building a successful economy.

Of course, the budget wasn’t about Canada succeeding, it was about the Liberals’ desperation to stay in power.

They threw enough borrowed money around to placate the supine Jagmeet Singh, and buy themselves some time as the Chinese Communist Party election interference scandal continues to escalate.

Trudeau has shown zero concern for the long-term future of the country, so why would that change now?

Expecting any kind of responsibility or economic rationality from this government would be the definition of insanity at this point.

Trudeau is making Canadians poorer and is making our country poorer, and it doesn’t matter at all to him and his enablers so long as they can extract a few days of political advantage from it.

It’s up to those of us who still retain a common-sense worldview, and who still understand basic economic reality to help convince more and more of our fellow Canadians to reject this government and reverse the decline of our country.

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