Canada’s Finance Minister Joe Oliver got himself into trouble earlier this week, and nearly derailed an otherwise excellent news week for the Conservative government.

After tabling Canada’s first balanced budget since 2007, Oliver was interviewed by the CBC’s Amanda Lang about the government’s plan to nearly double the annual amount Canadians can contribute to their Tax-Free Saving Accounts.

When asked about the hypothetical long-term revenue shortfalls that some have attributed to the Tax-Free Savings Account, Oliver said it was a problem for “Stephen Harper’s granddaughter to worry about.”

Joe Oliver was wrong to say that we can pass our problems to our grandchildren.

It’s a gaffe that boils the blood of young Canadians, many of whom are already ringing the alarm bell about high government debt levels that will be passed along to future generations of taxpayers to deal with.

There are many problems that Stephen Harper and, in fact, all of our children and grandchildren have to worry about.

These future taxpayers will have to fret about future debt or unfunded liabilities. For instance, they will be left to deal with the unaffordable Old Age Security program – a program that comprises nearly 20% of all federal spending – and how the pay-as-you-go scheme will almost certainly be phased out by the time today’s young people retire.

They have to worry about Canada Pension Plan, and how it’s an incredibly bad deal for young workers. Thanks to Jean Chretien’s CPP contribution hikes in the 1990s, anyone born in the 1980s or later will only ever qualify to receive about 66% of the value of their contributions based on current projections.

Young Canadians have to worry about the $1.2 trillion in combined federal and provincial debt, much of which has been racked up in the last few years as politicians and bureaucrats painfully regurgitate myths about the need for government debt to somehow stimulate growth in the economy during a recession.

Young Canadians will have to repay that debt. With interest.

In fact, our own personal savings accounts are about the only thing young Canadians can really rely on.

When Stephen Harper introduced the Tax-Free Saving Accounts in 2008, he allowed Canadians to save and invest their own after-tax money into an account protected from future taxation. TFSAs allow Canadians to save and invest without worrying about the federal government clawing back even more taxes down the road.

Economists are constantly expressing concern about whether the CPP will be a viable retirement option for young Canadians, so what better policy than encouraging Canadians to save money for their own future?

These big government types are not worried about our private savings accounts. They are worried that if Canadians can protect their savings from future taxation, there will be less money for big government coffers. They believe that by allowing Canadians to shield their after-tax savings from future taxation, future governments will lose tens of billions of dollars that could otherwise be taxed.

But a tax cut is not a government expenditure. Plain and simple. Allowing Canadians to keep more of their own money is not the same as the government spending money.

In order to believe the mystifying comparison, you’d have to believe that all the money that Canadians make by working hard belongs to the government. Tax cuts are then like an allowance given to us by a benevolent parent.

But that’s not how the world works.

The money you earn is yours. You must pay taxes – in Canada we pay about 45% of our income to various levels of government – in order to fund social programs and infrastructure.

Joe Oliver was right to say that future generations will have to fix many of the problems created today.

Today’s governments have saddled our children and grandchildren with a mountain of debt and an unsustainable level of government spending. It will be incredibly difficult for young and future Canadians to manage their way out of this mess.

They will have a lot to worry about.

And because young Canadians cannot necessarily trust that today’s government pension schemes and retirement benefits will be available to them when they retire, they need to be able to save for themselves. Tax-Free Savings Accounts are a progressive and transparent way for young people to ensure their retirement needs will be met. It allows them to be self-sufficient instead of relying on government.

We should be thankful for lower taxes and more private saving options.