Justin Trudeau is certainly making the government’s response look easy, disbursing billions of dollars hither and thither. This is a government that relishes spending, after all.
Even people supportive of his efforts to help two million low-income seniors raised their eyebrows when he extended the largesse to all seven million over-65-year-olds, many of whom protested on social media that they didn’t need the money. Seniors are already subject to a means-test: the Guaranteed Income Supplement is given to those with income of less than $18,600. A more prudent government would have directed the $2.5-billion package their way.
The apparently limitless nature of federal spending was on display again on Wednesday, with another $962 million in relief to be dispensed by regional development agencies to companies that have “fallen through the cracks” of other programs. Debt-to-GDP levels could crack 50 per cent this year, a level not seen since the 1990s, when it peaked at 68 per cent.
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