With this election campaign of 2021 more than halfway through, I am still having trouble with the fact the leader of this province, on March 20th, 2020, sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a dire message: “Our province has run out of time.”
Dwight Ball told Trudeau “I must bring to your attention the immediate and urgent financial crisis that Newfoundland and Labrador is facing. To put it bluntly, our recent attempts to finalize our borrowing program, both short term and long term, have been unsuccessful.
“We have no other recourse to raise the necessary funds to maintain the operations of government, including our health-care system, especially at this critical time.”
“Our attempts to borrow money to keep the province functioning were rejected.”
Did you know debt servicing is costing almost as much as we are putting into education?
Turn back your clocks to the general election of 2015 and all the promises made leading up to election by all.
Move ahead to the devastating budget of 2016 where the people of this province were overwhelmed with increases and cuts on just about everything because the Liberals didn’t know the mess we were in until they saw the books.
Well they had their look at the books. According to the 2016-17 budget documents, Dwight Ball and the Liberals inherited $15 billion in gross debt, $12.8 billion in net debt and the cost of debt servicing in the 2015-16 budget was $720 million.
According to the latest financial statement, 2020-21, our net debt has increased to $16.4 billion, our gross debt to $24.65 billion and debt servicing somewhere between $1.4 billion and $1.5 billion.
This present Liberal government, from what they inherited, has increased our net debt by $3.6 billion, our gross debt by $9.65 billion and debt servicing by $720 million.
Did you know debt servicing is costing almost as much as we are putting into education?
This Liberal government, knowing the dire financial mess this province is in, continues to spend. On the very eve of this election they promised $31 million in spending.
Did you also know the total gross debt per person is $47,313, and Muskrat Falls per person $25,144? For a grand total per person of $72,457.
Did you also know this year government will spend $2,687 on debt servicing per person?
It’s time for Andrew Furey and the rest of the candidates vying for office give their head a shake and deal with the real elephant in the room — our debt.
Jerome Terry Sr.
Mount Pearl
