It's Just Money

It seems to grow on trees:

“Carney sold Canadians on the idea that he would be different than former prime minister Justin Trudeau and he needs to prove that by cutting spending, debt and bureaucracy in Budget 2025,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “After a decade-long debt-fuelled spending spree, taxpayers can’t afford another Trudeau-style budget.”

The Parliamentary Budget Officer projects this year’s “deficit to increase sharply to $68.5 billion.”

Carney’s annual borrowing will add about $255 billion to the debt over four years, according to the PBO. For comparison, Trudeau planned on increasing the debt by $131 billion over those years, according to the most recent Fall Economic Statement.

Debt interest charges will cost taxpayers $55.3 billion this year, according to the PBO. That means the federal government will waste more money paying interest on the debt than it sends to the provinces in health-care transfers ($54.7 billion). Debt interest charges will cost taxpayers $82.4 billion in 2030.

The CTF’s pre-budget submission includes a clear taxpayer benchmark for Budget 2025: total spending must decrease. The submission details numerous ways for the government to find savings, including shrinking the federal bureaucracy.

The government added 99,000 bureaucrats and increased the cost of the bureaucracy 77 per cent since 2016. Despite the growth in the bureaucracy, half of Canadians say federal services have gotten worse since 2016, according to a Leger poll commissioned by the CTF.

“The government can’t keep borrowing more money forever and taxpayers can’t afford to pay $1 billion a week to cover debt interest charges,” Terrazzano said. “Carney needs to make the government more affordable for taxpayers and that means he needs to fire bureaucrats.”

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“Budget 2025 shows the debt continues to spiral out of control because spending continues to spiral out of control,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Carney needs to reverse course to get debt and spending under control because every dollar Canadians pay in federal sales tax is already going to pay interest charges on the debt.

“Carney isn’t close to balancing anything when he’s borrowing tens of billions of dollars every year.”

The federal deficit will increase significantly this year to $78.3 billion. There is no plan to balance the budget and stop borrowing money. The federal debt will reach $1.35 trillion by the end of this year.

Debt interest charges will cost taxpayers $55.6 billion this year, which is more than the federal government will send to the provinces in health transfers ($54.7 billion) or collect through the GST ($54.4 billion).

Budget 2025 increases spending by $38 billion this year to $581 billion. Despite promises to control spending in future years, Budget 2025 projects that overall spending will continue to rise by billions every year.

“Canadians don’t need another plan to create a plan to meet about cutting spending, Canadians need real spending cuts now,” Terrazzano said. “The government always tells Canadians that it will go on a diet Monday, but Monday never comes.

“And the government isn’t really finding savings if it’s planning to keep increasing spending every year.”

Budget 2025 commits to “strengthening” the industrial carbon tax and “setting a multi-decade industrial carbon price trajectory that targets net zero by 2050.”

“Carney’s hidden carbon tax will make it harder for Canadian businesses to compete and will push Canadian entrepreneurs to set up shop south of the border,” Terrazzano said. “Carney should scrap all carbon taxes, cut spending and stop taking so much money from taxpayers.”

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“A self-referential ecosystem of think tanks, lobbyists, political staff, and sympathetic bureaucrats who have quietly taken control of the conversation between government and citizens …

“It includes a revolving cast of institutes, consultants and public affairs firms that claim to ‘translate’ public opinion into workable policy.

“In reality, they translate their own donors’ preferences into briefing notes that ministers can repeat with confidence …

“By the time a proposal reaches the consultation stage, the terms of debate have already been set – not by citizens but by professionals who know the right rooms, the right buzzwords and the right tone.

“It’s not corruption in the crude sense. It’s capture by familiarity: everyone knows everyone and disagreement feels impolite …

(Sidebar: oh, I'd say it was corruption.) 

“Former staffers become consultants; consultants become chiefs of staff. The same worldview moves from think tanks to minister’s office and back again, creating what one veteran public servant calls ‘a closed epistemic circle.’”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney has now climbed into two submarines on two continents - one on a production line in Germany, the other in the water in South Korea - yet the 2025 federal budget, which allocated more than $80 billion toward defence, made no mention of funding towards the much-needed vessels.

The Royal Canadian Navy is in the market to buy 12 conventional diesel-electric powered submarines and the federal government has narrowed the competition to two companies: ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and Hanwha Ocean.

Canada currently has four aging submarines, only one of which is operational. The entire fleet is at risk of becoming obsolete by 2035, held together by parts that can’t be replaced, because they’re no longer being produced.

At a Saturday news conference in Ottawa to promote the budget, Defence Minister David McGuinty said “it’s hard to book money when you haven’t got a price on acquisition.” He insisted the procurement is on track, and that funding the new submarine fleet will be part of Canada’s NATO military spending commitments. 

 

It's hard to book money when there is none to be had. 

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Student loan write-offs will cost taxpayers $197.3 million this year despite interest waivers and generous repayment terms, budget documents show. An earlier internal report at the Department of Social Development blamed hard times: “The value of unpaid student loans will continue to grow.”

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I never asked for my money to rebuild Ukraine.

Why are we doing that? Why this pet project?

Why can't the Europeans do that?

Or Putin?:

.@CaFreeland appointment as "special rep for Ukraine reconstruction" was a made-up job with no budget, no office, no staff or expenses & a $79,700 pay cut, records show. https://t.co/s7bTHPpcVa #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/OHVnrfs4eo

— Blacklock's Reporter (@mindingottawa) November 7, 2025

 **

Seven weeks ago, Prime Minister Mark Carney assigned former cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland to be Canada’s new special envoy for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Canadians haven’t heard much about the job since, and nothing at all about how Ukraine can be rebuilt while Russia continues its wide-scale bombing of critical infrastructure.

But experts say Canada has a major opportunity now to help preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law — and to turn a profit in multiple sectors.

Here’s what we know.

What is Freeland’s job?

It’s not clear. The former journalist has not been interviewed by a Canadian news outlet since her appointment, despite multiple requests from The Canadian Press.

A September cabinet order establishing Freeland’s new role says she is serving as a parliamentary secretary to Carney for a term of 12 months.

Alexandre Lévêque, an assistant deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada, told the Senate foreign affairs committee on Oct. 22 that the job comes with a single staff member and support from his team at Global Affairs and the Privy Council.

“Madame Freeland, I think, is developing the role, as she’s beginning her functions in it,” he said.

“I think essentially, her role will be to detect opportunities — so bringing … the Canadian private sector, finding investors, finding potential Canadian expertise, particularly in things like infrastructure development (and the) mining industry.”

 

Rea$on$. 

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Doesn't anyone budget anymore?

I mean - I know that the government doesn't:

One in five Canadians say they’ve skipped paying a bill to afford groceries in the past year, according to new polling by Nanos Research for CTV News.

The survey found adults under 55 were four times more likely to put off payments for their cars, credit cards and electricity bills to buy food. ...

The Nanos survey found 18.1 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 said they missed a bill sometimes or often. That nearly matches the 17.9 per cent reported by those 35 to 54. The figure drops to 4.2 per cent for those 55 and older.

Inflation and high housing costs are major factors contributing to the generational divide, says chief data scientist Nik Nanos.

“It’s quite striking. I think in any other world, this would be considered an epidemic,” he said. “What’s clear is that there’s a significant proportion of Canadians that are facing those really tough choices.”

 

A bad credit rating will afford you NO groceries.