OTTAWA, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is criticizing Prime Minister Mark Carney for ballooning spending and debt in Budget 2025.

“Budget 2025 shows the debt continues to spiral out of control because spending continues to spiral out of control,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Carney needs to reverse course to get debt and spending under control because every dollar Canadians pay in federal sales tax is already going to pay interest charges on the debt.

“Carney isn’t close to balancing anything when he’s borrowing tens of billions of dollars every year.”

The federal deficit will increase significantly this year to $78.3 billion. There is no plan to balance the budget and stop borrowing money. The federal debt will reach $1.35 trillion by the end of this year.

Debt interest charges will cost taxpayers $55.6 billion this year, which is more than the federal government will send to the provinces in health transfers ($54.7 billion) or collect through the GST ($54.4 billion).

Budget 2025 increases spending by $38 billion this year to $581 billion. Despite promises to control spending in future years, Budget 2025 projects that overall spending will continue to rise by billions every year.

“Canadians don’t need another plan to create a plan to meet about cutting spending, Canadians need real spending cuts now,” Terrazzano said. “The government always tells Canadians that it will go on a diet Monday, but Monday never comes.

“And the government isn’t really finding savings if it’s planning to keep increasing spending every year.”

Budget 2025 commits to “strengthening” the industrial carbon tax and “setting a multi-decade industrial carbon price trajectory that targets net zero by 2050.”

“Carney’s hidden carbon tax will make it harder for Canadian businesses to compete and will push Canadian entrepreneurs to set up shop south of the border,” Terrazzano said. “Carney should scrap all carbon taxes, cut spending and stop taking so much money from taxpayers.”