Business
Carney’s spending makes Trudeau look like a cheapskate
This article supplied by Troy Media.
By Gwyn Morgan
The Carney government’s spending plans will push Canada’s debt higher, balloon the deficit, and drive us straight toward a credit downgrade
Prime Minister Mark Carney was sold to Canadians as the grown-up in the room, the one who’d restore order after Justin Trudeau’s reckless deficits. Instead, he’s spending even more and steering Canada deeper into trouble. His newly unveiled fiscal plan will balloon the deficit, drive up
interest costs and put Canada’s credit rating and economic future in jeopardy.
When Trudeau first ran for office, he promised “modest short-term deficits” of under $10 billion annually and a balanced budget by 2019. Instead, he ran nine consecutive deficits, peaking at $62 billion in 2023–24, and nearly doubled the national debt, from $650 billion to $1.236 trillion. That
reckless spending should have been a warning.
Yet Carney, presented for years as a safe, globally respected economic steward, is proving to be anything but. The recently released Main Estimates (the federal government’s official spending blueprint) project program spending will rise 8.4 per cent in 2025–26 to $488 billion. Add in at least $50 billion to service the national debt, and the federal tab balloons to $538 billion.
Even assuming tax revenues stay flat, we’re looking at a $40-billion deficit. But that’s optimistic. The ongoing tariff war with the United States, now hitting everything from autos to metals to consumer goods, is cutting deep into economic output. That means weaker revenues and a much larger shortfall. Carney’s response? Spend even more.
And the Canadian dollar is already paying the price. Since 2015, the loonie has slipped from 78 cents U.S. to 73. Carney’s spending spree is likely
to drive it even lower, eroding the value of Canadians’ wages, savings and retirement funds. Inflation? Buckle up.
Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation nailed it in a recent Financial Post column: “Mark Carney was right: He’s not like Justin Trudeau, he spends more,” Terrazzano argues. “The government will spend $49 billion on interest this year and the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects interest charges will be blowing a $70-billion hole in the budget by 2029. That means our kids and grandkids will be making payments on Ottawa’s debt for the rest of their lives.”
Meanwhile, Canada’s credit rating is under real threat. An April 29 report by Fitch Ratings warned that “Canada has experienced rapid and steep fiscal deterioration, driven by a sharply weaker economic outlook and increased government spending during the electoral cycle. If the Liberal program is implemented, higher deficits are likely to increase federal, provincial and local debt to above 90 per cent of GDP.”
That’s not just a red flag; it’s a fire alarm. A downgraded credit rating means Ottawa will pay more to borrow, which trickles down to higher interest rates on everything from provincial debt to mortgages and business loans.
But this decline didn’t start with tariffs. The rot runs deeper. One of the clearest signs of a faltering economy is falling business investment per worker. According to the C.D. Howe Institute, investment has been shrinking since 2015. Canadian businesses now invest just 66 cents of new capital for every dollar invested by their OECD counterparts; only 55 cents compared to U.S. firms. That means less productivity, fewer wage gains and stagnating living standards.
Why is investment collapsing? Policy. Regulation. Taxes. Uncertainty.
The C.D. Howe report laid out a straightforward to-do list, one the federal government continues to ignore:
Reform corporate taxes to attract capital investment.
Introduce early-stage investment incentives.
Tear down regulatory barriers delaying resource and infrastructure projects, especially in energy (maybe then Alberta won’t feel like seceding).
Promote IP investment with targeted tax credits.
Bring stability and predictability back to the regulatory process.
Instead, what Canadians get is policy chaos and endless virtue-signalling. That’s no substitute for economic growth. And let’s talk about Carney’s much-touted past. Voters were bombarded with reminders that he led the Bank of Canada during the 2008–09 financial crisis. But it was Jim Flaherty, Stephen Harper’s finance minister, who made the hard fiscal decisions that got the country through it. Carney’s tenure at the Bank of England? A different story. As former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss put it: “Mark Carney did a terrible job” at the Bank of England. “He printed money to a huge extent, creating inflation.”
Fast-forward to today, and Canada’s performance is nothing short of dismal. Our GDP per capita sits at just $53,431, compared to America’s $82,769. That’s not just a bragging-rights statistic. It reflects real differences in productivity, competitiveness and national prosperity. Worse, over the past 10 years, Canada’s per capita GDP has grown just 1.1 per cent, second worst in the OECD, ahead of only Luxembourg.
We remain a great country filled with capable people, but our most significant fault may be how easily we fall for image over substance. First with Trudeau’s sunny ways. Now with Carney’s global banker persona. The reality? His plan risks stripping Canadians of their prosperity, downgrading our creditworthiness and deepening long-term decline.
It pains me to say it, but unless something changes fast, Canadians face continued erosion in their standard of living and inflation-driven losses in their savings. The numbers are grim. The direction is wrong. And the consequences are generational.
Trudeau fooled voters with promises of restraint. Carney’s now asking for the same trust, with an even bigger bill attached. Canadians can’t afford to make the same mistake twice.
Gwyn Morgan is a retired business leader who has been a director of five global corporations
From Conservative Part Communications
Last month, Carney’s Minister responsible for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) debuted their new slogan: “It can’t get much worse than it is now.” Today, the Auditor General reported that under the Liberals, it has.
Over the 2024/25 period, only 18 per cent of callers were able to reach a CRA agent within 15 minutes, a far cry from the target of 65 per cent of callers. In June, the numbers plunged to just 5 per cent of callers able to get through within the service standard of 15 minutes.
The average wait time took over half an hour, double what it was the year prior. And that was if you were even given the option of getting help. Nearly nine million calls were “deflected” by an automated voice telling Canadians to figure it out themselves, with no option to speak with an agent.
Wait times are so bad that over 7.6 million calls were disconnected before callers were able to reach an agent or be provided automated service. As wait times continue to get worse and worse, Canadians have just given up, evidenced by 2.4 million more abandoned calls over the previous year.
Even when Canadians manage to get hold of an agent, employees regularly fail to provide correct information about personal and business taxes. Auditors found the call centre gave incorrect information 83 per cent of the time when asked general individual tax questions.
Non-specific questions about benefits, including about eligibility, were wrong 44 per cent of the time. Meanwhile, the CRA’s automated chatbot “Charlie”, meant to relieve the call centre, answered only two of six tax-related questions correctly.
“How is it that an organization so important to the smooth functioning of the country is failing to serve Canadians and, as the Auditor General notes, places greater importance on adhering to shift schedules and breaks than on the accuracy and completeness of the information provided?” asked Gérard Deltell, Conservative Shadow Minister for Revenue.
It’s no surprise that complaints about the CRA’s contact centre increased 145 per cent from 2021/22 to 2024/25. Despite this, the Liberals announced they will begin auto-filing taxes for 5.5 million Canadians, automatically enrolling people in benefits the CRA is regularly unable to provide accurate information about.
Worse of all, the cost of the CRA’s call centre has ballooned from $50 million over 10 years in 2015 to $190 million. The total cost is projected to continue rising to $214 million over the next two years, a more than 320 per cent increase from the original contracted amount.
Meanwhile, Auditors found “there was no process documented or followed to ensure that amounts invoiced … were accurate and reflected the services received,” and that there was “little evidence that invoice details were appropriately reviewed and approved by … the Canada Revenue Agency prior to issuing payment.”
The Liberals have delivered higher taxes and higher costs with worse service for Canadians. We deserve better than continued Liberal failures. Conservatives will continue holding Carney accountable and fight to cut taxes and waste so Canadians keep more of what they earn.
Business
Canada has fewer doctors, hospital beds, MRI machines—and longer wait times—than most other countries with universal health care
From the Fraser Institute
Despite a relatively high level of spending, Canada has significantly fewer doctors, hospital beds, MRI machines and CT scanners compared to other countries with universal health care, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“There’s a clear imbalance between the high cost of Canada’s health-care system and the actual care Canadians receive in return,” said Mackenzie Moir, senior policy
analyst at the Fraser Institute and author of Comparing Performance of Universal Health-Care Countries, 2025.
In 2023, the latest year of available comparable data, Canada spent more on health care (as a percentage of the economy/GDP, after adjusting for population age) than
most other high-income countries with universal health care (ranking 3rd out of 31 countries, which include the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands).
And yet, Canada ranked 27th (of 30 countries) for the availability of doctors and 25th (of 30) for the availability of hospital beds.
In 2022, the latest year of diagnostic technology data, Canada ranked 27th (of 31 countries) for the availability of MRI machines and 28th (of 31) for CT scanners.
And in 2023, among the nine countries with universal health-care systems included in the Commonwealth Fund’s International Health Policy Survey, Canada ranked last for the percentage of patients able to make same- or next-day appointments when sick (22 per cent) and had the highest percentage of patients (58 per cent) who waited two months or more for non-emergency surgery. For comparison, the Netherlands had much higher rates of same- or next-day appointments (47 per cent) and much lower waits of two months or more for non-emergency surgery (20 per cent).
“To improve health care for Canadians, our policymakers should learn from other countries around the world with higher-performing universal health-care systems,”
said Nadeem Esmail, director of health policy at the Fraser Institute.
Comparing Performance of Universal Health Care Countries, 2025
- Of the 31 high-income universal health-care countries, Canada ranks among the highest spenders, but ranks poorly on both the availability of most resources and access to services.
- After adjustments for differences in the age of the population of these 31 countries, Canada ranked third highest for spending as a percentage of GDP in 2023 (the most recent year of comparable data).
- Across 13 indictors measured, the availability of medical resources and timely access to medical services in Canada was generally below that of the average OECD country.
- In 2023, Canada ranked 27th (of 30) for the relative availability of doctors and 25th (of 30) for hospital beds dedicated to physical care. In 2022, Canada ranked 27th (of 31) for the relative availability of Magnetic Resonance Im-aging (MRI) machines, and 28th (of 31) for CT scanners.
- Canada ranked last (or close to last) on three of four indicators of timeliness of care.
- Notably, among the nine countries for which comparable wait times measures are available, Canada ranked last for the percentage of patients reporting they were able to make a same- or next-day appointment when sick (22%).
- Canada also ranked eighth worst for the percentage of patients who waited more than one month to see a specialist (65%), and reported the highest percentage of patients (58%) who waited two months or more for non-emergency surgery.
- Clearly, there is an imbalance between what Canadians get in exchange for the money they spend on their health-care system.
Mackenzie Moir
Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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