The group has also done national Debt Clock tours since the 1990s, showing the Canadian government’s debt. Photo Credit: Jay Goldberg/X.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), a non-partisan citizens’ advocacy group fighting for lower taxes, less waste, and accountable government, is taking aim at the Ford government’s high spending.
The group brought their provincial Debt Clock to Hamilton this past Tuesday to raise public awareness about the fact that Ontario’s debt is over $400 billion.
The Debt Clock is a huge digital counter mounted on the side of a moving truck that shows the provincial debt increase in real time.
“The provincial debt is already more than $400 billion and it’s going up by tens of millions of dollars every day,” said Jay Goldberg, Ontario Director for CTF.
“Every dollar Queen’s Park racks up in debt today is a dollar plus interest that taxpayers will have to pay back tomorrow,” he continued.
The CTF is hoping to push the Ontario government “to pay down debt.”
The organization says that each Ontarian’s share of the provincial debt is more than $28,000, with the debt continuing to increase by $768 every second.
They say that by the end of the year Premier Doug Ford will have added more than $86 billion to the provincial debt and provincial debt interest charges will cost taxpayers $14 billion this year alone.
“The Ford government is spending more money on debt interest than post-secondary education,” informed Goldberg.
“The province is wasting too much money on debt interest charges so Ford must cut spending and balance the budget.”
The Debt Clock will be making stops across Ontario, with a previous press release saying that the CTF plans to stop in 17 different cities.
The CTF are not the only ones who have called on the Ontario government to address the province’s debt problem.
The Fraser Institute, a think tank that produces research on public policy, published a study that found that Ontario’s debt is 84.9 per cent higher than in 2007/08 and that government debt equals “38.7 per cent of the province’s economy.”
As such, Grady Munro, a policy analyst at the Institute, and Jake Fuss, the organization’s Director of Fiscal Studies, wrote in an article, “As debt interest costs represent a growing drag on provincial finances, the Ford government should finally break its spending habits.”
It should be noted that this is not the first time that the CTF has launched Debt Clock tours.
The group has also done national Debt Clock tours since the 1990s, showing the Canadian government’s debt.
The national debt is over $1.2 trillion with data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer indicating that the federal government is not projected to balance its budget until 2070.
The CTF says that the Trudeau government was “spending all-time highs” even before the pandemic hit.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
