If you spent and borrowed like Ottawa you’d be in big trouble

According to polling released earlier this year, two-thirds of Canadians are concerned about the size of the federal deficit. And considering its size, Canadians are right to be concerned, but it can be hard to wrap our heads around the scale of the numbers involved. A new study puts the federal deficit in more familiar terms, and shows what the median Canadian household’s finances would be like if it budgeted like the federal government.

This year, the Trudeau government plans to spend $537.7 billion while expecting to collect $497.8 billion in revenues—a $39.8 billion difference or deficit, which represents the amount of money Ottawa must borrow in 2024/25 to cover its spending commitments. The Trudeau government has run deficits every year for the last decade, and plans to continue running deficits for at least the next five consecutive years.

Consequently, the government has racked up massive amounts of debt. In 2024/25, federal gross debt is expected to reach $2.1 trillion, which is nearly double the $1.1 trillion held in 2015/16.

So what would the median household budget look like in 2024 if it managed its finances like the federal government?

In 2024, the median household will earn $101,821 after taxes (median means half of Canadian families earn more than this amount and the other half earn less). If the median household chose to spend like the Trudeau government, it would spend $109,982 and incur a deficit of $8,161, which it would put on a credit card. And this year—again, if the family was in the same fiscal situation as the federal government—it would pay $11,066 in interest on an overall debt burden of $427,759.

While it’s clear that a family spending 11 cents of every dollar it earns on debt interest, and ending the year with $8,161 in new credit card debt, is not in a good financial situation, there’s an important nuance that makes this situation even worse.

For this comparison (the federal government and a Canadian household) to work, we shouldn’t view the $427,759 in debt as a mortgage. Why? Because when a family takes out a mortgage, the amount of debt is balanced by the value of the house. In other words, the family could sell the house and use that money to pay off most or all of the outstanding mortgage.

The same cannot be said about government debt. In many cases, government debt is not backed by many assets. In the unlikely scenario the federal government used all of its financial assets to pay off its debt, it would still be left with $1.4 trillion in debt this fiscal year. If the government went a step further and sold all its non-financial assets (which includes all buildings and land owned by the federal government), it would still have $1.3 trillion in debt. In other words, more than half of the federal government’s debt cannot be paid off simply by selling its assets.

The Trudeau government continues to spend beyond its means and rack up mountains of debt every year, which has eroded federal finances. If a family budgeted like the federal government, it would be in big financial trouble.