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Bah. Canadians are used to those numbers, and used to ignoring them. Who can possibly grasp numbers that come with 12 zeroes attached to the end? Most of us can hardly fathom the salaries of a first-line centre in the National Hockey League.

But the import of those numbers may be easier to absorb when put in another context. For instance, the report notes that the interest spent last year on previous borrowings –$61 billion – is almost equal to the entire cost of public education in Canada last year.

It’s $10 billion more than the total pension benefits paid out through the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan. Imagine: if not for the profligate borrowing of Canada’s governments, benefits to pensioners could be doubled without increasing a single tax, cutting a single program or adding a single cent to the budget.

At almost $1 billion a month, Ontario spends more on debt interest than it did on its entire welfare system. Quebec’s interest payments swallowed double the amount it spends on post-secondary education. All those Montreal street protests a year ago, by university students upset at a minor tuition hike, could have been avoided if the government wasn’t pouring money into servicing debt.

B.C.’s interest costs are double its childcare budget, Newfoundland spends more on interest than it does on elementary and secondary schools.

And remember – none of that money is going to reduce the principal. It’s just paying interest on past borrowings. The principal isn’t being reduced at all – it’s growing steadily. Ontario still spends almost $8 billion a year more than it brings in, and has a mammoth infrastructure plan to finance. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected on a promise to add $10 billion to the federal debt load every year for three years, but even his own finance minister doesn’t appear convinced he can stick to that figure. It’s more likely to be double the promised amount, unless some serious new tax, are sharp cut in spending, takes place.