Canada Election 2011: Conservatives have dismal record on finances

This article was last updated on May 20, 2022

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Claims by Prime Minister Harper the Conservatives handle the economy better may be smoke and mirrors

Chart Financial Post (click for larger image)

There is a lot of election talk about leaving Stephen Harper in office because he is more able to save the Canadian economy and jobs.  But is that the reality?
The worst deficit spending in Canadian history is a Conservative legacy, not one of the Liberals.
The Conservatives have been in power under Mulroney and Harper in the last three decades. In both cases they showed an alarming record of deficit spending.
When Brian Mulroney took office, the Canadian debt (adjusted for inflation) was about $250 billion. In ten years, the Conservatives almost tripled our debt to $630 billion.
It took the Liberal government another 12 years to pay down that debt to $500 billion.
After a brief respite, the Harper Conservatives are back into deficit spending, with our debt on the rise again. 
Canada’s Debt as a % of GDP, a dismal Tory record (chart National Post)

A recent comment vilified the Trudeau Liberals for putting Canada on the rails. The facts are – the Liberals kept Canada’s debt below $100 billion for 2 decades. It rose to slightly over $200 billion during the recession of the early 80′s.
Charting Canada’s debt as a percentage of the GDP tell basically the same story – the Conservatives have a dismal record of piling up debt.
No government has been more careless in spending than the Conservatives during their term in office.
Harper may or may not be a better money manager but his party has a dismal record for one named after conservatism.
Harper himself seem bound to repeat the mistakes of Mulroney by accepting we need to be have more deficit spending for another 4 years.
The only thing that follows reckless spending is painful belt tightening later down the road.
Our American cousins to the south have made their country impoverished by deficit spending over the past decade. It has weakened them to the point the Chinese may pass them as a world power.
Source – National Post

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network

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1 Comment

  1. it’s a sad state of things, the conservatives will drive up the debt to the point of disaster, then the Libs will come in like Chretien/Martin and tighten the belt by cutting social spending/transfers/EI funds/military etc. to squeak back to surplus and maybe even pay off a little debt, only to have the conservatives come in and take that small surplus cushion and translate it into a tax cut to get elected. i can’t stand Iggy and have little faith in him, but at least he can point out a couple cuts like saving on the fighters/prisons and the corporate tax cuts. he’s low balling his numbers and is probably spending twice what he’ll save, but he’s been more fiscally responsible than the cons gravy train. i just watched the 2004 election debates and Harper, when asked how he could cut taxes without going into deficit sacomment_ID he would curb the growth of government and sacomment_ID “we’re not going to spend as fast.” well, he dcomment_IDn’t spend as fast as the Libs, he spent faster.

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