With an election campaign underway, the Liberals and their establishment media enablers are trying to push the message of the supposedly “strong” Canadian economy.

Their propaganda efforts have gotten a boost from recent record highs on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The TSX has been doing well in recent days, with the banking sector a key driver of the gains.

However, the Liberals seem less interested in talking about another record high:

Household debt costs.

According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s household debt service ratio has now reached a record high of 14.93 percent, which is up from 14.87 percent in Q1 of this year.

This means a record-high proportion of Canadians disposable income is going towards paying the cost of debt.

You would think that would be one of the big headlines and a key issue to be debated during the election, but lo and behold it’s getting almost no coverage. In fact, it’s received far less attention than the record high TSX.

Yet, the TSX hitting a record high is something that could easily reverse itself on Monday, or the day after that, or the day after that. It could keep going up, or go down dramatically. That is to say that it’s a far more temporary and ephemeral indicator of the state of the economy. By contrast, a record high household debt service ratio is something that has been building up for some time, and it is a sign of far deeper economic troubles below the surface.

If the economy was truly doing well, it’s quite possible that overall household debt would continue to rise, but the ratio would be declining. If people were finding life more affordable, if wages were strong, then people would be able to pay down more debt, and rising incomes would be reducing the debt-to-income ratio.

Instead, we see the opposite.

The debt burden continues to get larger and larger, and this is happening as Canadians continue to show pessimism about their economic futures. People are falling further and further into debt just to try and maintain their standard of living.

That is the true legacy of the Trudeau Economy. Higher taxes, wage growth that can’t keep up with the true increase in the cost of living, increased desperation, rising pessimism, and debt costs surging to new record highs.

Once again, the evidence is undeniable: The Trudeau economy is a total failure.