Roundup: Not a looming crisis

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Everyone spent yesterday lighting their hair on fire based on this “buried” government report that was full of scary numbers, like growing deficits going out to 2050 that reached the $1 trillion mark, and wasn’t this just the sign of how reckless Liberal spending was, and so on. The headline in fact read “looming fiscal crisis.” The Conservatives in particular tried to push some rather questionable narratives about how much better fiscal managers they were, complete with a little chart that was a work of fiction that Dame Barbara Cartland would be proud of.

Of course, it’s all complete and utter twaddle. For one, the report points to the fact that the debt-to-GDP ratio continues to decline, which means that the economy is growing and the deficit is not proportionally. That is a big deal. And if you believe that the Conservatives would have a trillion-dollar surplus in the same amount of time, give your head a shake because they not only built their “balanced” budget on a foundation of sand in 2015, but they continued to insist that they would cut taxes rather than let surpluses accumulate (and hey, remember how their desire to cut the GST in a hurry left them with a deficit before the 2008 financial crisis even hit? Yeah. Prudent fiscal management there, what with the desire to put populism before good economics). Not to mention, as Andrew Coyne points out, the whole exercise was just that – a paper exercise based on a number of projections on a spreadsheet, not an actual economic forecast, which you wouldn’t actually do for 40 year timelines because that’s literally crazy-talk.

The question becomes, however, does this become a narrative that hangs around the Liberals’ necks like an albatross? They’re already using it as showing why they’re taking a harder line against the provinces demands for increased healthcare spending, and about approaching new spending with caution. But it also lends credence to their project for trying to restructure the economy to kick-start growth that is otherwise sluggish. Will it work? It remains to be seen. But without trying to sound like some kind of apologist, would it kill a single journalist writing the stories around said report to mention the debt-to-GDP ratio? Provide some actual context for those numbers, rather just present the scary trillion-dollar deficit figure and brand it a looming crisis, when it very clearly is not? But that might require something other than the usual kinds of cheap outrage that our journalism tends to peddle, making us all the poorer for it.

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland says that there are trade and immigration opportunities for Canada as the rest of the world moves toward protectionism and nationalism.
  • The Canadian Bar Association is demanding swifter action in appointing new judges as our court crisis continues to grind along.
  • Citizenship and Immigration has been building a computer system that will help to screen applications and flag problems earlier in order to fight the backlog.
  • While there are questions about the timelines between that Chinese donation negotiation with the Trudeau Foundation, the Ethics Commissioner won’t comment.
  • The price tag for Canada 150 celebrations is half a billion dollars? Oh noes! Except more than half of it is community infrastructure projects, so there’s that.
  • Here is a look at New Brunswick’s curious sesquicentennial branding slogan.
  • Erin O’Toole wants to talk immigration policy, but it’s mostly vague generalities (and most of it doesn’t make any sense, like focusing on Yazidi refugees only).
  • Robyn Urback thinks the Conservative leadership race so far is spelling good news for Trudeau.
  • Chris Selley, meanwhile, challenges the emerging narrative that Trudeau is becoming the new “leader of the free world,” or the “progressive” world in any case.
  • Senator Massicotte makes some good points as to why a randomly selected Senate isn’t a good idea.

Odds and ends:

Tristin Hopper has a look at the preparations for the unthinkable – the death of the Queen.

Some 10 Liberal would-be candidates are vying to be the nominee in the Ottawa-Vanier by-election.