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Pierre Trudeau expanded deficit spending

Re: “Deficit financing has future consequences,” letter, Jan. 31. I couldn’t agree more with the letter-writer; however, I do disagree with his opinion that Brian Mulroney created the problem during his tenure as prime minister.

Re: “Deficit financing has future consequences,” letter, Jan. 31.

I couldn’t agree more with the letter-writer; however, I do disagree with his opinion that Brian Mulroney created the problem during his tenure as prime minister. Pierre Trudeau took a more or less balanced budget by Lester Pearson in the late 1960s and grew the deficit to almost $11 billion by 1979. Trudeau returned in 1980 (after Joe Clark), then grew the deficit to more than $32 billion by 1984. He then handed a debt-ridden economy to Mulroney, who grew it to $39 billion by the end of his tenure in 1992.

The point is that Trudeau (senior) was the creator of the deficit-spending frenzy. Paul Martin as finance minister under Jean Chrétien and later as a short-term prime minster brought the Canadian economy into positive numbers (over $13 billion in the black by 2006). Stephen Harper did not have much of a choice in 2008-09 to institute deficit spending as the world sank into a severe recession.

Deficit spending creates huge debt followed by huge interest and it will never go away until we all tighten our belts and get back to balanced budgets. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should review his father’s spending-spree policies and be careful not to follow suit. His promise to increase deficit spending to boast the economy has no merit, based on the current negative financial situation.

We are already increasing our debt simply through our devalued dollar and busted resource-based economy. We don’t need to exacerbate that by more borrowing.

Court Stevens

North Saanich