Financial Post: "The last federal fiscal update lauded Canada’s low government indebtedness, a continuing theme from Ottawa. According to the update, “Canada continues to have the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio relative to international peers.” The Trudeau government repeatedly uses this statistic to justify the continued borrowing and record deficits currently financing historically high levels of government spending (that in fact predate the COVID pandemic). But a broader assessment of Canadian government indebtedness raises serious concerns about our country’s ability to continue to finance spending through borrowing.
"The text of the update refers to “international peers” but the comparison is actually limited to the G7 — Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Italy and Japan. Among these countries, Canada does have the lowest net debt as a share of its economy at 23.4 per cent in 2019. But why limit the analysis to just the G7? Canada competes with many other industrialized countries. If the analysis is extended to include the 31 high-income countries covered by the IMF , Canada’s ranking for 2019 falls to 10th. (In fact, the IMF forecasts that for 2021 Canada will fall to 11th)."
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