Remember when Mark Carney was hailed as the golden boy of Bay Street and Threadneedle Street, the man who could steady the pound and soothe the loonie? He was the adult in the room, we were told — the suave technocrat who could make the trains run on time and the deficits disappear. Well, welcome to Ottawa, where competence goes to die.Carney inherited a country already knee-deep in Justin Trudeau’s fiscal swamp, and instead of draining it, he’s built a diving board. The former prime minister blew through over half a trillion dollars like a university frosh on a beer card. Carney has coolly carried on adding to the national tab. For a man famous for his stern lectures about “prudence,” this is like Weight Watchers recommending cheesecake for breakfast.Deficits, once upon a time, were considered a moral failing. Paul Martin, hardly a right-wing firebrand, treated them as a national disgrace. Today, in Carney’s Ottawa, deficits are a lifestyle choice. Why cut back when you can borrow? Why prioritize when you can print?.CARPAY: Neither freedom nor democracy is destined to live forever.Canada’s national debt now squats at over $1.6 trillion, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. That’s trillion, with a “t.” Not a word you hear often in small-town diners or corner Tim Hortons — unless you’re joking about Ottawa’s math. Debt-servicing costs are soaring north of $50 billion a year — more than Ottawa sends to the regions for healthcare. In other words: less for nurses, more for bond traders. Nice work if you can get it.Carney’s defence? Interest rates were low, so borrowing was painless. That’s like saying heroin’s fine until you run out of veins. Rates are rising. Mortgage holders know it. Families know it. The only people pretending otherwise are in cabinet meetings..As economist Jack Mintz pointed out in the Financial Post, the debt trap tightens when rates normalize. And normalize they have. Inflation squeezed households, but Ottawa remained immune, still addicted to its own stimulus drip.Every Canadian now carries a $40,000 share of the national debt. Babies born today have a tax bill before they’ve had their first diaper change. This isn’t “inclusive growth.” It’s intergenerational theft dressed up as virtue..McTEAGUE: ’Net-Zero' Carney's going to build new pipelines? I'll believe it when I see it!.Carney loves to preen about the “green transition.” But no amount of wind turbines or solar panels erases the arithmetic. You can’t spend your way to wealth. If you could, Venezuela would be the Riviera.Even the IMF — not exactly a chapter of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — has raised its eyebrow at Canada’s fiscal drift. When the world’s most reliable enablers tell you to slow down, you know you’re in trouble..What’s the answer? The same one your grandmother would give: stop spending money you don’t have. Balance the books. Cut back on bureaucracy. Cap program growth below inflation. Make debt reduction a law, not a suggestion.This isn’t cruelty. It’s adulthood. The farm families of Saskatchewan, the oil workers of Alberta, the shopkeepers of small-town Ontario — they all balance their books because reality insists on it. Only Ottawa thinks it can live outside arithmetic forever..PINDER: The challenges and policy conflicts of our prime minister.Mark Carney was supposed to be the sober banker who cleaned up Trudeau’s mess. Instead, he’s Trudeau with cufflinks — the same reckless habits, just delivered with a better suit and smoother vowels. Canada didn’t need another magician. It needed an accountant.Cheap money betrayed Canadians. Now the bill is due. The only question is whether we’ll demand fiscal discipline — or whether we’ll let Ottawa keep maxing out the Mastercard while the country slips quietly into decline.
