The Bolt

I'm not going to overlay the list of federal parties to show the federal debt by Prime Minister again this year, since we don't yet have a new federal political party. You can go take a look at that graph if you're interested in the history of how we got so deep in debt.

Without further delay, here's the main graph of interest:

Source: Public Accounts of Canada

As promised and predicted, our federal budget was not balanced in 2008-2009. Quite simply, the federal government spent more money than it collected. I would say "I wish I could do that", but actually I don't. Because I know that if I did that, and continued to outspend my income, my own life would turn into some collection agency's top priority.

Here is the second of the two "big picture" graphs:

Source: Public Accounts of Canada

The federal government doesn't seem to share my disdain for amassing debt. And I'm not saying that Canada is alone here; I know that I could point at Japan's current economic situation like many people are doing right now, but what does that help? I think instead of pointing at other countries and declaring what better shape we are in than them, we should instead learn from their mistakes (and our own) and forge our financial future in a better way.

Brace yourselves, this current fiscal year (2009-2010) will be worse.