On the Level (October 21, 1991)

I often wonder if the average Canadian really worries about our national debt. To me it’s scary, for it affects almost every facet of our everyday life.

This country is in terrible financial straits. Starting its flight into space during the heady freewheeling Trudeau days, this crippling interest-gouging debt has more than doubled to $419 billion since Brian Mulroney came to power. And there’s no arrest in sight.

All that rhetoric out of Ottawa about “coming to grips” to reduce the deficit is pure poppycock. It’ll almost certainly be up this year despite massive tax increases, with few signs of any serious efforts to reduce spending. Mulroney’s Ottawa mandarins continue to spend over $30 billion more each year than they take in. That’s over $80 million deeper into debt day in and day out. To me this spells trouble — real trouble.

Do they care? Are they really trying, for there are so many obvious areas where major savings could be made if only they would put economic considerations ahead of political ones.

For example, there wasn’t any anticipated “peace dividend” in Defence Minister Marcel Masse’s recent defence policy.

Recognizing the cold war is over with the collapse of communism in Europe and the Soviet Union, what possible military justification can there be for Canada keeping 6,600 troops in Germany to protect one of the world’s richest countries.

Why not save taxpayers billions of dollars by closing those German bases and pulling our unneeded troops out now, not in 1994 and 1995 as planned? And there are numerous other redundant military bases in this country kept open for political considerations only.

Even worse, Canada is going right ahead with a controversial and scandal racked $1.1-billion low-level-air-defence (LLAD) system designed to protect its two German military bases. Not expected to be completed until 1995, it admits many of the units will simply be mothballed.

Back in the war years the late Hon. C.D. Howe, then minister of munitions and supply, created quite an uproar with his “what’s a million dollars?” remark. I can almost hear Masse echoing “what’s $1 billion?”

Then there’s that $6.2 billion floundering frigate program which is just about as dumb and necessary as that planned fleet of 12 nuclear submarines which had to be cancelled because of the storm of protests from angry taxpayers.

Now Masse tells us this year’s military budget will actually be increased to $13 billion — and higher for some years to come, for he is now planning to build three conventional submarines. Why? At what cost? Considering Ottawa’s desperate financial position, couldn’t we possibly get along without these? During the Mulroney reign Canada has slipped from near top to the bottom ranks of the industrial world’s economies. Mulroney may have won spurs as a negotiating labor lawyer but he surely gets a failing grade for the manner in which he has directed Ottawa’s purse strings.

He continues to pour billions and billions of dollars into the likes of forced bilingualism and multiculturalism, both highly divisive programs that would be rejected out of hand if ever put to a countrywide vote. Every time he leaves our shores he plays the role of a world leader of a rich country, promising millions to virtually every country he visits. Fortunately, he recently cancelled a trip to South Africa so there will be a saving of some millions of dollars there.

Certainly we Canadians enjoy generous government handouts via its social programs — welfare treatment second to none, baby bonuses, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, free hospitalization and medical care. Such universal treatment obviously carries a high price tag including the heavy cost of supporting nearly a million of the country’s native peoples who pay little in the way of taxes and who are now demanding very substantial cash handouts on top of their massive land claims — quite a financial load to be foisted on a shrinking core of middle class taxpayers. It would now take a genius indeed to balance the federal budget and lift us out of the Mulroney-Trudeau financial mess in which we now find ourselves.