Bigger is not better when it comes to government, and neither is it better when it comes to government debt.
The double trouble then for B.C. and the rest of Canada is that both are getting bigger with no sign from political leadership that they are going to get any smaller any time soon.
That is a disturbing trend for Canadians now, but it is an even more disturbing trend for Canadians a generation down the road.
They will be shouldering much of the heavy lifting that will be needed to keep the country’s economy afloat and to sustain its citizens’ standard of living.
The pandemic is a convenient scapegoat here, but government size and spending as a share of the country’s economy were consistently increasing long before COVID-19’s fiscal devastation.
Data compiled by the Fraser Institute shows, for example, that government spending as a percentage of Canada’s GDP rose three percentage points between 2007 and 2019, when it totalled 40.4 per cent.
Regionally, the size of government expanded in eight of the country’s 10 provinces.
Coupled with a federal government that has become unhinged from economic realities and a population now habituated to receiving expensive new programs with no sign of the revenue needed to pay for them, Canada is drifting into dangerous fiscal waters.
There appears to be no political leadership with the courage to ensure that residents and businesses that benefited from the colossal outlay of federal spending during the pandemic help pay for it.
Repayment mandates are politically unsavoury, and governments do not voluntarily downsize.
But the longer ill-advised government spending and bureaucratic empire building are allowed to continue, the more painful the costs will be for the country and its citizenry.
That begs the question: who has the courage to say no now and who is willing to make the sacrifice now so that those costs are not all passed on to future generations?
