Billions more debt will spur economic growth: Liberals

The federal Liberals are betting that billions more in debt will pay itself back in economic growth by helping thousands of workers find jobs and small businesses adapt to shifting consumer behaviour.
The government’s budget estimates all the spending should create or maintain some 330,000 jobs next year and add about two percentage points to economic growth.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s first budget – and the Liberal government’s first budget in two years – was delivered on Monday, laying out more than $2 billion for a national child-care program while keeping the federal deficit for the past year under the $400 billion mark.
The largest contributor is $30 billion over five years on top of existing planned child-care spending to drive down fees in licensed daycares and eventually get to $10 a day by 2026.
The initial investment will be in excess of the $2 billion a report by the federal finance committee recently said should be the starting point of any national child-care program, and will be enough to lay the foundations of a full-scale national system that puts both affordability and quality at its start.
There is also more money for broadband infrastructure and over $1.6 billion in funding for small and medium-sized businesses to make sure they aren’t left behind by the dash to online shopping.
The child-care investment plays into the federal government’s three key budget components, which include introducing measures that address critical needs in the short, medium and long term.
All that extra spending with few new taxes will send the deficit to $154.7 billion this fiscal year, one year after a record-smashing $354.2 billion deficit induced by the pandemic.
(Canadian Press / CBC News)