Dear John,

Last week, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered the Trudeau government’s 2021 budget – the first federal budget in over two years.

I wish I could say I was pleasantly surprised by its contents. But it’s a big government budget through and through.

The federal net debt is now expected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2025/26 – and the Trudeau government has no credible plan for balancing the budget or ensuring a healthy post-COVID economy.

Quite the opposite – the budget will result in a larger role for the government in the economy, and our lives, with big promises in infrastructure, “green” spending and subsidized national daycare. All this while largely ignoring the vital and essential role entrepreneurs, innovation and investment play in Canada’s economy.

Let’s put it this way: in the 3,500+ word budget speech, “government” and “we” as in “we the government” was mentioned over 110 times. The word “entrepreneur” was mentioned only twice.

The term “innovation” appeared four times in the speech – but each mention was related to government programs or government involvement in the economy. Similarly, the word “investment” appeared a whopping 17 times – but, you guessed it, only two referenced the private sector. The remaining 15 mentions all referred to government “investments.”

It is clear that this government is simply not interested in encouraging economic growth. It pays for spending with the country’s credit card and shows a complete disregard for the country’s growing debt.

I think you’ll agree, John – educating Canadians about these troubling policies is more important than ever.

That’s exactly what we continue to do here at the Fraser Institute. In the days that followed last week’s budget we released eight commentaries, analyzing everything from the eye-popping size of the deficit, to the government’s largely debunked plan for infrastructure stimulus, to the lofty new plans for a national daycare program.

These commentaries were placed in newspapers across the country. Our experts appeared on talk radio shows all across Canada, spreading this awareness even further. And our analysis also reached millions of people online, being shared across various social networks thousands of times.

We do all this analysis to help fulfill our mandate: to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families, and future generations by studying, measuring, and broadly communicating the effects of government policies, entrepreneurship, and choice on their well-being.

We also do all this work without government handouts – we rely entirely on supporters like you.

If you’re able to, please consider making a donation today [[link removed]].

With your help [[link removed]], we’ll continue informing Canadians that these debt-ridden budgets are not just numbers on paper, they are real and affect the long-term sustainability and prosperity of our country.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Niels Veldhuis

President

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