Article content

Between their election in 2015 and the end of the next fiscal year, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau plans to run up deficits totalling $52.5 billion — with another $91.3 billion planned for the next four years after that.

Fifty two billion dollars doesn’t sound all that impressive in a world of $20 million fighter jets and $500 million birthday celebrations.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Everyone gets a bathtub full of beer: What the Liberals’ massive $52.5B deficits could buy Back to video

But to illustrate just what a gargantuan sum Canada is running up on the charge card, the National Post broke out the calculator and found out what else $52.5 billion could buy.

Sending 15 Curiosity rovers to Mars

Canadian space endeavours are generally limited to tagging along on other countries’ space missions. But with a cheque for $52.5 billion, the Canadian Space Agency could be utterly peppering the cosmos with maple-leafed spacecraft. As an example, the extremely ambitious NASA mission to send the truck-sized Curiosity rover to Mars cost only $3.4 billion CDN, with smaller Martian missions clocking in as low as $300 million.