Thank you for the invitation to participate in the Budget process right here in Thornhill
As an aside, I do think it's a shame about the limo and portfolio ... but, happily, Firewall Steve-the-Expedient, our evermore Impatiently Chief Autocrat/Emperor of the Canadian Crown cannot take the "honourability" of your Privy Council membership away from you, it'll be on your letterhead forever.
Back on topic, may I recommend you suggest to the Hon. Mr. ("Way over his Head" but too dull to perceive it) Flaherty, that a review of the mechanism of Funding the $892,014,427,913 (March 31/13) of Interest-Bearing Debt via interest-only Bonds and T-Bills is in order.
A failure to address the 48.4% growth (increase of almost $291 billion, from $601.073 Bn to $892.014Bn since March 31/06) in the principal amount(s) of the Unmatured Debt and Public Pension liability accounts on his watch will soon force the Stewards of the Canadian economy who inherit this mess from the also-Hon Mr Flaherty, to let loose inflation (just a tad they'll explain, for the sake of growing the economy ...say from 2% to say 4.5%) in order to reduce the "real" value of these almost-perpetual bonds through the resultant currency devaluation.
These accounts are kept safely away from public/pundit scrutiny by the Budget Briefing's misdirective focus on the seemingly well-contained Public Debt Charges (due to dirt cheap rates) and the obfuscation of fiscal comparators like the totally dis-informative Debt to GDP ratio - as if the General/Confederal Stewards of the Crown's Treasury and Assets were actually IN CHARGE and CONTROL of the nation's whole Gross Domestic Product.
(ed note: Remember when we used G National P? The world-wide switch was made to GDP because it is a "bigger number" -- it includes the contribution of international enterprises on a country's soil -- hence making all the "bad stuff" look smaller ...shrewd eh?)
Inflation is a borrower's best friend and a lender's worst enemy ...unless the interest rate is linked-to inflation, which reverses the aforementioned friend/enemy characterizations.
Again if Mr Flaherty's department cannot bear the political pain of bringing this foreseeable problem to public attention, then perhaps you could bring public attention
Chart 6a - a picture really is worth a billion dollars..... to bad this pie-chart is only in Percentages (ie 24.5% of all interest-bearing debt is owed to PUBLIC SECTOR PENSIONS!!!! - payable at HIGHER rates of interest than "unmatured debt" because of some special deal worked out in (the Hon B) Mulroney's day
Hon. Peter Kent, P.C., M.P – ThornhillChair, House Standing Committee on National Defence
