Business
You are paying for our governments’ debt addiction
From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro
Ottawa and the provinces will together spend $82 billion on debt interest this year—equivalent to the total amount spent on K-12 education in Canada during 2020-21.
Budget season is approaching and while government debt has been increasing rapidly for years in Canada, today’s relatively high interest rates have made it more expensive to borrow money than in the recent past.
According to our new study published by the Fraser Institute, between 2007-08 and 2023-24 federal and provincial government net debt (i.e., total debt minus financial assets) has increased by roughly $1.0 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars. Though pandemic-induced deficits explain part of that, fully 58 per cent of the run-up in debt occurred before COVID. That deserves emphasis: our current debt problems are not mainly the result of the pandemic.
Because both federal and provincial governments borrow—municipal governments not so much—Canadians face different government debt burdens depending on where they live. Newfoundland and Labradorians currently owe the largest combined (federal and provincial) government debt in Canada at $67,471 per person. Ontarians are not far behind at $60,609 while Albertans are in the best shape at $42,293.
In terms of debt-to-GDP ratios, the four Atlantic provinces are all currently above 85 per cent, which means it would take more than four out of every five dollars generated in the economy of each Atlantic province this year to pay off their combined federal and provincial debt.
Nova Scotians are worst off, with combined debt equivalent to 97 per cent of what their economy produces in a year. The national average debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to be 76 per cent this year, up significantly from before the pandemic.
Despite a surge in revenues, few Canadian governments are forecasting surpluses for the current fiscal year. Instead, Ottawa and the majority of provinces have chosen to increase their spending and debt and, in most cases, incur deficits for years to come.
This is a worrying trend, as many governments were already on unsustainable debt trajectories that they are now making worse. Governments need to restrain spending and move towards balanced budgets in the short term, while the economy is in relatively good shape, not put off difficult decisions for someone else to take at some future date.
Debt means always having to pay interest. Because their debts have grown and interest rates are higher than they have been for some time, Ottawa and the provinces will together spend $82 billion on debt interest this year—equivalent to the total amount spent on K-12 education in Canada during 2020-21.
Money that goes to interest can’t pay for tax cuts or spending on health care or education. It drives a wedge between the taxes we pay and the services we actually receive. And it burdens, not just today’s taxpayers, but future generations, too.
Growing government debt is not just another unpleasant COVID symptom. It was a problem well before COVID and it’s getting worse even though COVID is now mainly over. This budget season, our federal and provincial governments need to get their fiscal houses in order and stop their debt binging before it spirals even further out of control.
Authors:
From The Center Square
While setting aggressive goals for electric vehicle market share, the Biden administration also wants tariffs and or restrictions on the importation of vehicles and the minerals needed for their batteries – creating heightened concerns over supply chains in what can be described as a “Catch-22” situation.
Solutions to some of the problems include battery recycling and increased domestic mining, however, the U.S. is currently limited in its capacity for both. Federal funds are spurring new recycling plant projects, but questions remain on whether there will be enough used material to meet projected needs.
In his e-book, “The EV Transition Explained,” Robert Charette, longtime systems engineer, and contributing editor for IEEE Spectrum, says making the transition is harder than anyone thinks. He recently told The Center Square it is truer now than it ever was.
“None of this is simple,” he said.
His argument centers on the lack of planning and systems engineering on initiatives that are politically, not engineering, driven. While change is possible, he suggested it would require trillions more in government spending and enforcing those changes through law.
Charette identified many serious issues in setting up the EV battery infrastructure – and even if those challenges are met, he said, there may be tradeoffs between affordability, security and environmental concerns.
Profitability. Battery recycling is a still-developing process which is time consuming and expensive. The cost of purchasing recycled materials may be more costly than buying them new.
Manufacturing demand and potential backlog. The U.S. will require eight million batteries annually by 2030 to meet the government’s EV target, with increases each year after that.
Standardization. Batteries vary in configuration, size, and chemistry.
Domestic mining. While decreasing our dependency on outside sources, what are the environmental impacts? It can also take years to acquire permits and get a lithium mine up and running.
Mineral shortfalls. Secure and sustainable access to critical minerals like copper, lithium, cobalt, and nickel is essential for a smooth and affordable transition to clean energy. An analysis by the International Energy Agency indicates a “significant gap” between the world’s supply and demand for copper and lithium. Projected supplies will only meet 70% of the copper and 50% of the lithium needed to achieve 2035 climate targets.
The report said that “without the strong uptake of recycling and reuse, “mining capital requirements would need to be one-third higher. The agency also emphasizes China’s dominance in the refining and processing sector.
Transportation of discharged batteries classified as hazardous waste is one of the costliest steps of the recycling process. Experts suggest updates to federal EPA and DOT regulations for how battery-related waste is classified. In addition to health and safety, they say clearer definitions of what constitutes hazardous waste would help reduce transportation costs. Many recycling plants are being built in regions where production sites are located to address this.
Supply chain and skills gap shortages. The timetable set by the government is not aligned with the capabilities of the current supply chain. Software plays a key role in the management and operation of an EV battery, and automakers are competing for a limited supply of software and systems engineers.
Competing interests. The goal is to create a circular battery economy, reducing the need for raw materials. However, an EV battery that is no longer useful for propelling a car still has enough life left for other purposes such as residential energy storage. Experts propose a battery material hierarchy where repurposing and reusing retired EV batteries are more favorable to immediately recycling them, detouring them out of the cycle.
Charette says the biggest problem with recycling projections is that they are built on assumptions that have not been tested.
“We won’t know whether these assumptions hold until we reach a point where we are recycling millions of EV batteries,” he said.
Because most EV lithium-ion batteries produced through 2023 are still on the road, the International Council on Clean Transportation reports that the majority of materials being used as feedstock by recycling plants currently come from scrap materials created during battery production.
According to Charette, manufacturers also claim future generations of batteries will last 15 to 20 years, which he says would put a bigger kink in the used-battery supply chain.
Another issue contributing to consumers’ reluctance to buy an EV is the inability to determine the overall health of your battery. Current testing methods are inefficient and costly.
EV adoption has so far not met projections and with all the competing interests, Charette said the market will ultimately tell us what direction the situation is headed. He is also intrigued over the impact government pressure will have on the eventual outcome.
He said many individual components have yet to be worked out, adding that although there is a vision, “we’re a heck of a long way from that vision to getting where we need to go.”
In his opinion, battery recycling issues are even further behind than transitioning the electric grid to renewable energy sources.
From the Fraser Institute
Here’s the shocker: Meng shows that for 15 out of the 16 uses, plastic products incur fewer GHG emissions than their alternatives…
For example, when you swap plastic grocery bags for paper, you get 80 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substituting plastic furniture for wood—50 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substitute plastic-based carpeting with wool—80 per cent higher GHG emissions.
It’s been known for years that efforts to ban plastic products—and encourage people to use alternatives such as paper, metal or glass—can backfire. By banning plastic waste and plastic products, governments lead consumers to switch to substitutes, but those substitutes, mainly bulkier and heavier paper-based products, mean more waste to manage.
Now a new study by Fanran Meng of the University of Sheffield drives the point home—plastic substitutes are not inherently better for the environment. Meng uses comprehensive life-cycle analysis to understand how plastic substitutes increase or decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by assessing the GHG emissions of 16 uses of plastics in five major plastic-using sectors: packaging, building and construction, automotive, textiles and consumer durables. These plastics, according to Meng, account for about 90 per cent of global plastic volume.
Here’s the shocker: Meng shows that for 15 out of the 16 uses, plastic products incur fewer GHG emissions than their alternatives. Read that again. When considering 90 per cent of global plastic use, alternatives to plastic lead to greater GHG emissions than the plastic products they displace. For example, when you swap plastic grocery bags for paper, you get 80 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substituting plastic furniture for wood—50 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substitute plastic-based carpeting with wool—80 per cent higher GHG emissions.
A few substitutions were GHG neutral, such as swapping plastic drinking cups and milk containers with paper alternatives. But overall, in the 13 uses where a plastic product has lower emissions than its non-plastic alternatives, the GHG emission impact is between 10 per cent and 90 per cent lower than the next-best alternatives.
Meng concludes that “Across most applications, simply switching from plastics to currently available non-plastic alternatives is not a viable solution for reducing GHG emissions. Therefore, care should be taken when formulating policies or interventions to reduce plastic demand that they result in the removal of the plastics from use rather than a switch to an alternative material” adding that “applying material substitution strategies to plastics never really makes sense.” Instead, Meng suggests that policies encouraging re-use of plastic products would more effectively reduce GHG emissions associated with plastics, which, globally, are responsible for 4.5 per cent of global emissions.
The Meng study should drive the last nail into the coffin of the war on plastics. This study shows that encouraging substitutes for plastic—a key element of the Trudeau government’s climate plan—will lead to higher GHG emissions than sticking with plastics, making it more difficult to achieve the government’s goal of making Canada a “net-zero” emitter of GHG by 2050.
Clearly, the Trudeau government should end its misguided campaign against plastic products, “single use” or otherwise. According to the evidence, plastic bans and substitution policies not only deprive Canadians of products they value (and in many cases, products that protect human health), they are bad for the environment and bad for the climate. The government should encourage Canadians to reuse their plastic products rather than replace them.
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