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Justin Trudeau faced with persuading voters that debt and deficits are not dirty words

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Justin Trudeau faced with persuading voters that debt and deficits are not dirty words

by John Ivison

The fog of electoral war cleared momentarily and one of the key themes of the 42nd general election came into focus, as Justin Trudeau announced the second major economic theme of the Liberal Party platform.

The Liberals will double the amount spent on infrastructure over the next 10 years to $125-billion, in an attempt to stimulate demand in the economy, he said. The move will require deficits of less than $10-billion in each of the next two fiscal years, but the budget will be balanced by 2019 and the growth created will mean Canada’s debt to gross domestic product ratio will continue to fall.

“The choice in this election is clear, between smart investments, jobs and growth or austerity and cuts that will slow the economy even further,” was the way the Liberal leader characterized it.

That is, needless to say, playing fast and loose with the facts. The Conservative government is already spending $65-billion over 10 years — an amount Stephen Harper said is three times what was being spent before he took office.

 But it does give voters clear options.

The Liberal move is no great surprise. At the party’s conference in Montreal in 2014, Trudeau invited former U.S. Treasury secretary Larry Summers to speak on his pet theory of “secular stagnation” — the idea that Western democracies are facing Japanese-style economic torpor because of a shortage of demand. The cure, he believes, is for governments to juice that demand with “productive investments.”

full story at  http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/john-ivison-justin-trudeau-faced-with-persuading-voters-that-debt-and-deficits-are-not-dirty-words

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