HANNAFORD: Mad as hell yet, and not going to take it any more?

After eight years of the Trudeau Liberals, Canadians are not just deeper in debt. They are a lot deeper in debt.Yesterday the credit reporting agency Equifax claimed that total Canadian consumer debt had reached $2.4 trillion. That’s $81 billion more than this time last year.However, it is a massive, daunting $800 billion more than it was in 2015, the year the Trudeau Liberals came to power. Fifty percent up in eight years... These figures do not even include mortgage debt. It means that Canadians collectively owe more than their federal government which, as the Fraser Institute reported, is now projected to top $2.1 trillion next year.Is there any way that this cannot be laid at the door of the governing Liberals?Well, let's be fair. The prime minister, after all, cannot be held accountable for foolish purchases that Canadians may have made, using credit. Defenders of the government might also assert that as the population has grown since 2015, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the total indebtedness of the population would also have grown.There is some merit in these defences. But, not enough to take the Liberals off the hook.Let us set aside the prime minister’s cavalier dismissal of basic economics as a subject unworthy of the crystal purity of his mind. Of course, budgets balance themselves. Of course, we’ll forgive him if he doesn’t think much about monetary policy. “You’ll understand that I think about families.” Yes, we have people for the other, boring stuff.Trouble is, he never listened to the people he had, as his one-time finance minister Bill Morneau related, in a book dealing with his time in government. And now, it’s the families Mr. Trudeau claimed to be thinking about who are in serious trouble.But really, how could it be otherwise? Mr. Trudeau used the Government of Canada’s power to borrow money as does many a teenager with their first credit card. And the problems of Canada's struggling middle class and the increasingly submerged under-class, started there.Then came COVID and brought the perfect excuse to stand on the steps of Rideau Cottage and make spending announcements, in the belief that this would prove popular. In fact, it didn’t prove as popular as expected and the Trudeau Liberals lost both seats and votes in the 2021 election.However the seeds of inflation were now sown. The Bank of Canada chose to fight it by raising interest rates — realistically, that’s about all you can do. They said it took money out of the economy. Quite; it does that by taking money out of people’s pockets.Sure enough, we now have less money and people at the margins are forced first to cut back, then to borrow. And all those poor souls who took on big mortgages at low rates who thought they were doing a good thing by investing in their homes — everybody tells you that’s the thing to do — are now facing the worst decision of all. Do they sell at a loss to get out from under the burden of debt, only to find they can’t rent either… or do they live on credit and hope things change?Those with the appetite for misery, can inspect the growth of the national debt, here.So, here we are.Milk and gasoline cost the same, whatever your income. High earners don’t like the higher price but can probably afford to refinance their houses when it’s their turn. Those who aren’t high earners first cut back, then borrow and hope for the best.By the way, a high income isn’t what it used to be: In Calgary, $100,000 is no longer enough, apparently.The solution is ultimately a government that understands monetary policy and how to build, rather than to destroy a country's economy. There was a time when some Liberals understood that — the so-called 'blue Liberals' among whom John Manley is often offered as the defining example. But there were others — Paul Martin, John Chretien, Ralph Goodale and Marc Garneau... alas, we didn't know when we were well off.However, we look in vain today, for that kind of gravitas on the government front benches today. When we did have it it, the PM didn't choose to listen to it. Indeed, I'm not sure one could even call this assemblage of socialist adventurers a government of Liberals. It's less than two years to the next election. If there was any sense of public decency, the Liberal party (or whatever it is) would allow Mr. Trudeau to spend more time surfing, at which he manifestly has some talent. What they should not do, is allow him to make any further decisions about the economy.

HANNAFORD: Mad as hell yet, and not going to take it any more?

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