Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to a question I raised in the House back in the spring session, shortly after the budget was delivered, when the government issued more debt and extended the debt it was going to visit upon Canadians.
I asked that because the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions talked about follow-on risks of the added debt the government was bringing into the financial equation for Canadians. Those follow-on risks include things such as stress in the mortgage insurance industry, investment portfolio risk, asset management risk and insurance risk. These are things the government does not have its eye on when it loads on more and more money. It keeps extending the balance sheet, not just to the government, but also its Crown corporations.
The Bank of Canada's balance sheet is expanding its liabilities, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is expanding its balance sheet with more liabilities. This is more risk for Canadians. That risk is borne in higher costs throughout the financial system and Canadians eventually bear that. They bear that because the government manages Canadians' money and pulls the money in. It is no wonder the government is raising taxes because there are more bills to pay. The primary part of the bill, of course, is ever-rising interest on the debt that they are incurring. This is a house of cards.
At the time, I stated that the finance minister needed to redo the budget because, frankly, it was not delivering for Canadians. The government is spending way beyond our means and loading a whole bunch of burden onto future Canadian taxpayers. At that point in time, the parliamentary secretary's response to me was that it is a hard time for Canadians, but then tried to blame rising mortgage costs on Conservatives, as if we have been in government causing all of this mayhem in the Canadian financial system.
I am going to go back to what the Prime Minister said years ago when he talked about the Canadian government taking on a whole bunch of debt so Canadians do not have to. The issue is that both have happened. The government's debt-to-GDP ratio is now 107%. It is referenced in the International Monetary Fund's own disclosure documents, which I referred to last week in a previous session. That amount is excessive, and we recognize how high that is. However, the parliamentary secretary tried to tell me last week that it is only 40%. It was, frankly, misinformation. It is in the government's own documents and exists nowhere else in the world. Government debt in Canada is 107% of our GDP. Liberals can reference that, and Canadians can reference that any time they want.
If we add to that the Canadian debt that is held by the public, that is about 102% of GDP. If the government debt, all in, is $2.1 trillion, counting both provincial and federal debt, and the Canadian consumer debt is about $2.5 trillion, we are talking about a massive 209% minimum debt-to-GDP ratio in this country. There is no other country in the world, frankly, with such an offside both on the consumer side and on the government side. This whole thing about issuing debt for the benefit of Canadians, when the government is also incurring a whole bunch of debt, is only layering on. I will get back to the cost of this.
I would like to hear what my colleague across the way has to say about how the Liberals are going to manage this debt and get things under control.