But...but Canada was the shining star and to be used as an example of how to run a country. My guess is they will not make any changes.

The 50% debt to GDP figure for 2017 is Ontario debt only.

The figures here are better reflection of reality:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01....

Where the combined fed + prov debt of Ontarians is 82% of GDP, and Québec is 118%.

Most services that Canadians depend on each day (think health, education, roads, welfare) are managed by provinces, not federal.

For clarity, this report just concerns the Province of Ontario, not Canada as a whole.

The bad thing is that the conservatives go on record always using the term "liberal government" as being at fault for spending more than it takes in.

WE have had many alternating years of 'conservative' Presidents / Congresses and they do the same same things... sometimes even worse in unfunded wars and medical-related policies that have allowed drug companies raise prices to often obscene levels, ie non-negotiated medicare/aid.

The general public I interact with in my very-republican town all think the same thing: 'those evil dems' are to blame for all our ills, and this is false. Notice I called my town republican because they are not conservatives and our budget has become a microcosm of DC's.

The whole world is in a horrific mess and the only party who follows the Constitution gets no media coverage since the other two parties own the media. We are Davids versus the Goliaths. God was with David and he conquered. May it be so again.

Those numbers are all bull**** Karl.

Ontario alone as a province has a 220% debt-revenue print right NOW.

We're running annual $16b deficits vs. a $120b revenue with nothing other than words to bring the deficit to 0 in FY2017. That's not including the off balance sheet **** some estimate at another $200bn.

We're ****ed as bad as anyone, including Greece IMO when we blow up. We're heading to the wall in a bad boy 4x4 with moose horns on the horn but that just means way more energy is gonna get released when we impact....

read this for a more accurate but still too optimistic picture

http://www.thestar.com/mobile/news/canad.... <-leftist rag

Hmmm..... 220%?

I'd like to point out that Ontario is receiving $3.3 billion in equalization payments from Alberta. (Quebec $7.4 billion)

What happens if oil drops down to $60 a barrel?

I do wonder - what can Albertans really do about it? There is a fiscal union here through the fed gov, so you might want to stop or reduce transfer payments, but good luck getting a majority gov willing to do it.

Then what? Pass a law limiting the province's ability to borrow?

My sense is we are in the minority, folks - we are powerless, except as advocates for making the majority aware. I am doing that, but folks just don't want to hear it, don't want to talk about, and don't understand the math.

In effect, with all the benefits programs, the majority is unaware how bad things are anymore. We have put a sack cloth over 70% of the populations heads.

The only hope I can see is a judge ruling, like School Bussing, that a balance is mandated by the Constitution.

we're in for a much longer dive here, the citizens with the sack cloths over their heads won't know the problem until they feel the heat of fire, or they are in free fall. They don't care, and they don't want to care, about deficit spending.

College students on the role of government:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxHfYNTrn....

Frustrated/dejected,
AR

Quote:

I'd like to point out that Ontario is receiving $3.3 billion in equalization payments from Alberta. (Quebec $7.4 billion)

What happens if oil drops down to $60 a barrel?

I'm still learning about these transfer payments. (moving to Alberta within the year) Are they fixed amounts or are the amounts calculated based on how much oil revenue is brought in?

Quote:

I'd like to point out that Ontario is receiving $3.3 billion in equalization payments from Alberta. (Quebec $7.4 billion)

Many in Ontario would point out that is simply a refund of the 40 years worth of payments it made to Canada when times in the heartland were good. I've seen first hand what Alberta looks like when energy prices tumble, truly a one horse economy with blinders. Alberta better hope energy doesn't hit $60/barrel, those moderating prices benefit Ontario (and indeed the ROW for the most part) far more than $3.3B in equalization payments.

Anyways, Ontario has NOT seen the light. This was a consultant, he has put it all on the table and yet already we are seeing the current Liberal Premier's cherished sacred cows like all day preschool (almost $2B/yr.) labelled untouchable.

Health/Education are $70B of $125B (56%) and rising faster than growth and inflation.

Mark that's my point, oil can easily drop back to 60-70 and it would wipe out probably 75% of the equalization money to Quebec and Ontario. Quebec's deficit would triple...

Grumpygirl:

Basically Alberta pays over $17 billion in personal income tax to the Federal government and receives only $4.7 billion back in Federal transfers.

Gen,

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Nonetheless one must applaud Canada for putting into stark relief that which must be done.

Now let's see them implement it

Breath ~ ~ ~ ~ HOLDING. . . .

Transfer payments have always been damaging to the long term health of Canada.

Transfer payments reduce or eliminate the need for irresponsible "have not" provinces to clean up their act. This is why "have not" provinces tend to have more nurses per capita, more daycare benefits, etc., than the "have" provinces. There is little to no incentive for the "have not" provinces to clean up their act, as the larger their shortfall, the larger the transfer payments to them would be. Similarily, there has been less incentive for the "have's" to cut expenditures, or excercise austerity measures, as much of the savings and benefits realized would be confiscated by the "benevolent" Federal government and distributed to the less responsible provinces.

Moral Hazard at the provincial level.

Markgoldman wrote..

Many in Ontario would point out that is simply a refund of the 40 years worth of payments it made to Canada when times in the heartland were good.

Many would, including myself. But roles have reversed...it used to be that Ontario was rockin' and Alberta was knockin', but now the opposite is true with the oil sands.

Markgoldman wrote..

Anyways, Ontario has NOT seen the light. This was a consultant, he has put it all on the table and yet already we are seeing the current Liberal Premier's cherished sacred cows like all day preschool (almost $2B/yr.) labelled untouchable.

Agreed, Ontario has not seen the light. Yet.

Markgoldman wrote..

Health/Education are $70B of $125B (56%) and rising faster than growth and inflation.

Case in point: I got a small piece of glass jammed in my heel a few months ago. I couldn't walk without a lot of pain, so I decided to try the ER in a large suburb of Toronto. I went in at 1:00am and waited 2.5 hours for a "doctor" to run an x-ray, then to tell me there was no glass (or maybe there was but he just couldn't see it) and that I should just go home. He never looked closely at my foot.

I put "doctor" in quotes because he likely makes over $100,000/yr, yet he was unable to take the time to use a magnifying glass and look closely at the wound and see what he could do that way. He did however spend those 2.5 hours using his loud voice yapping with another male nurse about things that don't matter (golf scores etc.), all while 10 patients in the queue (some with children) waited in the waiting room as we listened to his very boring stories. Wasted time, and I'm sure he got paid to be there regardless of his efficiency.

Our government needs an overhaul from the top down. I bet anybody with half a brain could run the whole sha-bang up here in Ontario for less than half of what it's costing us right now. Let's see here -- the cost of using a magnifier and tweezers vs. ordering an X-ray and sending the guy home after 3 hours? Hmmmm, I better hire a consultant to tender this out and give me 3 opinions so I can decide which once is the financially prudent decision. But it's all covered on the OHIP card, so don't worry it's free ha ha.

Did I mention I had to pay $15 out of my own pocket for parking?

Quote:

Mark that's my point, oil can easily drop back to 60-70 and it would wipe out probably 75% of the equalization money to Quebec and Ontario. Quebec's deficit would triple...

I think it has been written that only about a dozen individuals truly understand the metrics behind how the formula is applied. I don't, but off the cusp if Alberta falters Ontario and PQ are still have nots in receipt of Federal Equalization payments so I'd think our Feds would be on the hook as they are now.

Quote:

Grumpygirl:

Basically Alberta pays over $17 billion in personal income tax to the Federal government and receives only $4.7 billion back in Federal transfers.

A $13B spread is that all? $25B here in Ontario. This Province is on the skids but still pays a Kings ransom to the 'benefit' of Canada. Problem is we don't bitch enough, but I'd also like to think we grasp the bigger picture of Confederation and realize bitching isn't going to bring the Manufacturing base back.

Here's some debt statistics for Ontario and Canada, with sources.

Canada - Federal

At the National level, Prime Minister Harper's comment at Davos http://www.canada.com/Transcript+Stephen....,

"Our net debt-to-GDP ratio remains the lowest in the G7 - and by far"

is interesting, but it distracts from the bigger picture. Canada seems to be held up often as the poster child for fiscal responsibility, yet this does not show true in the numbers. It is simply not objectively true. I mean if Europe has AIDS and America has crabs, to continue Karl's analogy then Canada is a cancer patient blabbing about how they spent years lavishly planning for the funeral on the credit card, and getting applauded for it. What a crock!

According to DebtClock.ca http://www.debtclock.ca/index.php?option....,

"By March 31, 2012, Canada’s federal debt is expected to hit $585.4-billion."

Ok so our Federal debt (not what Karl's post was about, but I'll get to that) is $585B, or $16,916 for every man, woman and child. Now let us look at provincial...

Canada - Ontario Provincial

The Province of Ontario debt exposure is significant. Note that roughly 40% of Canada's population lives in Ontario and nearly half of those live in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) (per http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demo....). Also note that Premier McGuinty's liberal government added a huge chunk to the debt since he took office in 2003.
Wiki states,

"The province’s net debt will rise to C$220 billion in 2010-11, or a record 37% of gross domestic product."

According to the OFA (http://www.ofina.on.ca/borrowing_debt/de.... the debt was tracking to be $251.9B by the end of Q3 2011. Furthermore, and according to http://taxpayer.com/ontario/ontario-debt....,

Ontario "total debt is expected to hit $257.9 billion by the end of the current fiscal year."

The population of Ontario is expected to be around 13,445,000 for that same time-frame (end of Q4 2011).

Crunching this data we see that our Provincial debt is $257.9B or $19,182 for every man, woman and child in the province of Ontario.

Note: Provincial debt per capita is higher than federal debt, which is the opposite in the USA where federal debt per capita is higher than state debt. One reason for this is that all health care is handled at the provincial level. There are likely other reasons as well.

In conclusion, if you add the $16,916 Federal and the $19,182 Provincial, we find that every man, woman and child living in Ontario/Canada has their combined government carrying $36,098 of debt per capita. Isn't that just peachy. And that's every man, woman and child -- imagine what it would be if you calculated it for the working population alone (since they're the ones who generate the revenue).

Even if my numbers aren't dead on they're not far off, and from this you can see how we're not much different from America. The per capita numbers on the US Debt Clock confirms this http://www.usdebtclock.org/.

P.S. -- The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has a lot of useful numbers, they run the DebtClock.ca and TaxPayer.com websites and have a lot of helpful numbers for Canadians, although usually from a Federal point of view. More digging is required to find the Provincial numbers.

P.P.S -- All this is in Canadian dollars, but since it is basically trading at par with the USD, for all intensive purposes it is more or less the same for our American friends who are reading this.

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A $13B spread is that all? $25B here in Ontario.

So you have roughly four times Alberta's population but only pay twice as much?

Sounds deal like to me.

Mind you in all fairness the median family income in Calgary is something like 95k per year versus 42k or so in Ontario so it probably balances out in that way.

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and realize bitching isn't going to bring the Manufacturing base back.

Nope. To quote Steve Jobs those jobs aren't coming back.

Mind you Alberta just elected someone who may as well be a Bay street liberal to run us so we may not be in much better shape in the not so near future either.