Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is growing Canada’s debt faster on a per capita basis than any other peacetime government leader in this country with the exception of those who struggled with recessions, says the Fraser Institute’s director of fiscal studies.
“This is unprecedented in history,” said the think-tank’s Charles Lammam in an interview Tuesday. “You’d have to go back more than 100 years to see a prime minister who increased the debt without a recession or a world war.”
Tuesday, the Fraser Institute released a report written by Lammam and co-author Hugh MacIntyre. Dubbed An Analysis of Federal Debt in Canada by Prime Ministers Since Confederation, the report, reveals the percentage by which all but three prime ministers either added or subtracted to the national debt, using as their metric the value of that debt in 2017 dollars on a per capita basis. Three prime ministers were excluded from the report because they served three months or less.