Liberals promise massive deficits coupled with Trudeau-style social justice agenda

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Liberal Leader Mark Carney released his plan over the weekend to spend $130 billion over the next four years and rack up a deficit of $62 billion — and, because he calls it “investing,” he expects Canadians to trust it.

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The Liberal leader’s big trick involves dividing his planned spending into “operating” and “capital” categories, just like an annual financial statement. The intent is to emphasize that he plans to dedicate the majority of his new spending to capital (such as infrastructure) rather than operating costs (which include services, staff salaries and other spending on non-physical things), hence the “spend less, invest more” slogan. The actual accounting behind Carney’s plans is fuzzy; on Monday, University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe remarked that “much of what the platform calls capital is probably just rebranded program spending.”

Capital or not, Carney’s plan to overspend is a bad idea: if you buy a mansion and strap yourself to a mortgage you can’t afford, you can be said to be investing in capital — but you might not ever pay it off, crushed under interest with no ability to buy decent furniture, clothes and food. Carney’s would do just that with an entire economy, rather than a household.

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Carney’s “capital” budget would include $25 billion for prefabricated homes, $10 billion for building affordable housing, unknown amounts of funding for “clean energy and critical mineral projects,” $5 billion for Indigenous loans (bringing the total up to $10 billion), $4 billion for health-care renovation and new construction, $1 billion for startups, $20 million for classrooms to teach the trades and more.

When Carney rattles off these billion-dollar figures, Canadians must remember that the Brookfield business empire, which the Liberal leader has served as a board chair and fund manager, has placed big bets on both prefabricated homes and green energy.

As for non-development, Carney would spend $250 million on the conservation of new lands, and an