i just checked out Dept. of Finance and they have the Nat'l debt at 170 billion when trudeau left, and 450 billion in 1993. A difference of 280 billion.
According to the Bank of Canada, between 1984 and 1993 the average annual interest rate on the debt was 7.2%. Compounded annually, the 170 billion dollar debt would have increased to over 317 billion on its own. Factor in high unemployment = lower tax revenue and structural deficits and your partisan analysis starts to lose water.
Why was it that the GST was introduced again?
Why were crown corporations sold?
Why free trade?
just for fun, i guess. Certainly not to increase the botton line, and pay down debt.
Give this a read and then get back to me... Oh, by the way, I suppose that based on your assertion that the debt was raised at 7.2%, the long-term 19% (compounding) yield Canadian gvt bonds were counterfeit.
An excerpt:
TRUDEAU: CANADA'S GREAT HELMSMAN
By
Eric S. Margolis 8 October 2000
TORONTO - `Speak not ill of the dead,' the ancient sages cautioned.
Sometimes, however, we must.
As now, when we watch the memory of Pierre Trudeau, who died last week,
being cynically manipulated, grossly distorted, and cloyingly
sentimentalized by his Liberal Party heirs to win votes in upcoming
elections. Trudeau's sainted ghost is to be used like the corpse of the
Spanish hero, El Cid, strapped onto a horse and sent into battle.
Most Canadians have been brainwashed into believing the charming,
charismatic Trudeau was a great prime minister who built a strong,
prosperous, humane Canada that was morally and socially superior to the
United States. This fable was charmingly echoed by the increasingly
leftish Toronto Globe & Mail, in one of many weepy hagiographic tributes to
St. Pierre: `PM Jean Chretien...considers himself the main defender of Mr
Trudeau's liberal vision of a just and compassionate Canada.'
Let me precisely quantify the costs of Trudeau's `just and compassionate
Canada,' both for Canadians who wish to continue Trudeauismo, and for
Americans who are being told by Democrats that socialized Canada offers a
far more successful and humane culture than the USA:
*In 1968, when Trudeau went from rich, socialist professor who had never
held a real job in his life to prime minister, Canada's national debt was a
modest $11.3 billion; the federal deficit was zero. When Trudeau left
office in 1984, the debt had mushroomed to $128 billion; the deficit to $25
billion annually. But this was just the beginning.
*Canada's Great Helmsman created a vast bureaucracy, and massive welfare
programs to buy votes for his Liberal Party. He restricted trade and free
markets, imposing confiscatory taxes.
Trudeau drove Canada so far left that today's opposition Canadian Alliance
- a moderate centrist party by world standards - is routinely termed
`rightwing' or `far right.' The state-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corp
(which I call the Ministry of Truth), teachers unions, the monoculture
leftiss academia, and left-leaning media keep brainwashing Canadians that
high taxes and big government are good for Canada and the essence of
national identity. Anyone who questions rule by bureaucracy, deficit
spending, unlimited immigration, or social engineering is denounced as a
far-right racist.
When Trudeau entered office, Ottawa spent 30% of Canada's total economic
output(the same as the USA). When he left, government spending had
skyrocketed to almost 53%. With half of Canadians working directly or
indirectly for Ottawa, the nation became infected with bureaucratic and
union work ethics - state-sponsored laziness.
Trudeau and his successor quickly learned a basic strategy of Europe's
socialist governments: if the state can employ over half of voters, they
will always vote for the party of government.
Government is supposed to serve taxpayers. But under Trudeau and his
Liberal Party, it became Canadians who labored to serve an increasingly
disdainful, autocratic government. Canadians were gulled into believing
that when Ottawa taxed them ten dollars, and gave back two, they were
getting `benefits' and `social services.'
Many adored Trudeau - but I'd also be adored if I had a hundred billion of
borrowed taxpayers dollars to give away.
*In 1970, the US, Switzerland, and Canada were the world's three richest
nations. Canada's robust dollar traded around US $1.06 - ie 6% more than
the US dollar. Today, thanks to Trudeau's socialism, and Brian Mulroney's
failure to uproot it, the dollar has sunk to a pathetic, humiliating $ .66
cents.
C$100 invested in Canada in 1970 would be worth only 66 cents today.
Little wonder foreign investment, the lifeblood of Canada's growth, dried
up. Most Canadians didn't understand their assets have depreciated, in
real value, by 33%. By relentlessly devaluing the dollar, Ottawa literally
stole people's savings.
*After Trudeau retired, his unstoppable socialist juggernaut picked up
speed. Canada's federal debt - the amount Ottawa borrowed in the past that
remains unpaid - has skyrocketed to C$ 576 billion - $54,000 per taxpayer.
Almost third of your current federal taxes go to paying interest on this
debt - just like on a credit card with an unpaid balance. In 1999 alone,
Canadians paid $41.5 billion debt interest, four times what Ottawa spent
on defense.
Add $ 2.3 trillion of unfunded pension liabilities, and the figure rises to
a staggering $244,000 owed per taxpayer. Canada's `just' and
`compassionate' society is built on a mountain of debt, passed on to coming
generations.
*In 1970, Canda had one of the lowest debts -and lowest taxes - among
industrial nations. Today, Canada ranks as one of three leading debtor
nations, with socialist-run Belgium and Italy. While Ottawa's annual
deficit was ended by imposing crushing taxes, the monster debt overhang
remains. The US is projected to pay off its entire national debt by 2012.
At Ottawa's puny repayment rate, it will take Canada 288 more years!
