On Monday, I was given the opportunity by NL Radio Kamloops to record a guest editorial on the federal debt hitting $600 billion. You can listen to it here—or read the piece below:

Late Saturday night, Canada’s national debt clock clicked over the $600 billion mark. That’s $17,200 of debt for every man, woman and child in this country.

We have the spending habits of three Prime Ministers to blame for most of it—Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. The governments led by those three men rang up more than 525 billion of that 600 billion dollar debt.

How on earth does Prime Minister Harper, supposedly a fiscal conservative, find himself on this list?

Well, he explained to reporters recently, revenue is somewhat down.

Er, wrong, Mr. Prime Minister. Canada’s tax coffers are overflowing at record levels. In fact, Ottawa has never taken in as much money as they did last year—a record 245.2 billion dollars. This year is looking even better.

The problem isn’t revenue—it’s spending. In the days before the debt clock hit 600 billion, Conservative MPs spent borrowed money for such important national priorities as TV ads, snowmobile trail grooming equipment, tennis courts, curling rinks and corporate welfare for a gluten-free bakery and Canada’s pet food industry.

The debt would be even worse, if not for the work of Liberal leaders Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. On their watch, the debt actually dropped by 6 billion dollars. Not a huge amount, but they did rein in spending.

Perhaps the Conservative in the Prime Minister’s office should take a harder look at what Chretien and Martin did -- and get a little more Liberal.

For the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, I’m Jordan Bateman.