As I said, the budget, over the next five years, has set cumulative spending of $3.1 trillion. By the way, that's a record in a five-year fiscal framework plan. These numbers, to be believed, require a few other things to happen. Remember, only six months ago the same minister who predicted that we would have a balanced budget at the end of the fiscal framework is now projecting no balanced budget in sight and is adding $130 billion of debt to the national debt of the country. That's if you assume that in future budgets—in the next year, for example—they don't decide to spend a single dollar more than they pledged to spend in this one.
I think there's very little expectation that this government will not use the opportunity of perhaps a Speech from the Throne or an economic statement in the fall, followed by another budget, to have more spending added to this. But right now what that means is at the end of this fiscal framework we'll have a record national debt of an astounding almost $1.4 trillion. We're hearing in the news today about President Biden holding emergency meetings about the fact the United States is now at their debt ceiling. Many don't think perhaps that we have one, but we do have a debt ceiling. With our debt ceiling the maximum amount we're allowed to have right now is $1.8 trillion. At the spending rate of this government, I expect within this mandate we're going to be facing the same problem of reaching a debt ceiling issue for Canada.
Those are big numbers, but what affects Canadians every day is what's going on in the daily budget. The interest on the debt—like your credit card you have to pay interest on anything you borrow—this government has managed to build up will rise from $44 billion today to $50 billion in five years. That's if you're to believe their interest rate calculations.
The budget document outlines interest rate calculations, and, for example, it suggests that next year interest rates will be 6.2%. The first quarter projection from the Bank of Canada is that by that period of time, in the first quarter of next year, interest rates will actually be 6.6%. We're only a month past the budget and the minister's financial projections on what the interest rate will be are already incorrect according to the Bank of Canada. That will drive up the costs of borrowing and the costs of that debt.
That debt is more than we spend on health care from the federal government. Think about that. All of that money could be going to improve our health care. We know in the province where I live, a province of a million people, we have a waiting list of 142,000 people waiting for a doctor. They can't get a primary doctor to get access. If you don't have a general practitioner doctor, you don't have access to the health care system. Imagine what $44 billion to $50 billion could do, instead of paying interest on debt, to improve that. It might actually help us meet our 2% target for NATO, which we are declining on.