By Gazette Staff
July 28th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The one community group with a tight focus on what the city spends and where that money comes from is Focus Burlington.
They recently published a very informative document that set out what the public debt is for both the country at large and the province of Ontario.
Don’t think this doesn’t matter to you – your taxes pay the interest on that debt.
The following came to us from Focus Burlington:
The federal government reports that “Public debt charges are now forecast to reach $53.7 billion for 2024-25 (or 1.8 per cent of GDP)—$0.4 billion below the Budget 2024 forecast of $54.1 billion”.
Looking at the debt and service charges as an amount per person is a way to gain perspective when dealing with large numbers. Statistics Canada reports that our population is estimated to be 41,548,787[5]. Looking at the debt servicing charges on a per-person basis, this works out to $1,292 per person per year in interest payments.
Where the Federal debt is now estimated at $1,352 billion, or $32,764.49 for each Canadian.
Each province has its own debt to contend with.
The province of Ontario is reporting that 16,176,977 people now live in Ontario.
The province is projecting $15.2 billion in interest and other debt service charges. The works out to $939.00 per person per year.
The total debt in Ontario is $428.12[8] billion or about $26,464 per person.
Combine the federal debt and the provincial debt, each person in Ontario only owes $59,228.49 in combined Federal and Provincial Debt.
The combined debt services charges amount to $2,231 per person per year.
Is it wrong to suggest our councillors focus on the Burlington budget increase of 5.8% rather than chasing a pot of gold at the end of a bankrupt rainbow?
There is just the one taxpayer – federal, provincial and municipal turn to them to pay the bills.
At the end of the day, there is only one taxpayer, paying federal, provincial and municipal taxes.
Perhaps Councillor Nisan can discuss this problem at a future FCM Board Meeting.
Focus Burlington data is not wrong – however the public debt gets paid by individual tax payers as well as corporations.
What Focus Burlington has done is shown that the money the governments borrow has to be paid back – and were it to be assessed to individual taxpayers the numbers Focus Burlington made available are what a taxpayer will have paid out – assuming of course that every taxpayer earned the same income.
At the federal level, when the government borrows money, it has to expand the money supply. The central bank issues bonds to finance that debt that the government then uses to spend on its programs. This causes inflation particularly when the growth in money supply exceeds GDP as it did during the last 10 years and as it likely will under Carney.
So help me square this circle, knowing this, why did readers of this paper vote for more debt, more interest on the debt and more inflation through expansion of the money supply?
Editor’s note: Blame it on a severe lack of financial literacy – money supply to most people means whatever is in your wallet.
It’s a good analysis as far as it goes but it is rather simplistic and, in terms of general context, also a bit misleading. But a good effort from a volunteer special interest group. I hope to see more as the budget cycle ramps up.
I read this “opinion piece” by Eric Stern two days ago in the BayObserver. I don’t suppose that Eric is one of your “staff” but the article is identical. As a member of FocusBurlington, I also read this a few days ago on their website. Is there a collaboration between FocusBurlington, the Bay Observer and the Gazette? Interesting approach if so. Is FocusBurlington going to become an online news source? We need all that we can get.