VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – No one will be cheering this milestone.
    
Our national debt hits 600 billion dollars at 8:19 tonight, meaning every Canadian owes over $17,000.
    
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation‘s Gregory Thomas says our gross debt is higher than 18 of the world’s 30 advanced economies.

“If you look at countries like Australia and New Zealand, they have similar populations and economies to the ones we have, Scandinavian countries, even Korea is doing better than we are, so is the Netherlands. There are lots of models of how to run things,” describes Thomas.

He says our national debt is now rising at a rate of $74.6 million a day. “The best thing to do when you’re in a hole is to stop digging. In the middle of the financial meltdown in 2009, Jim Flaherty  said he’d have a surplus of $700 million next year, now he’s saying he’s going to have a $16.5 billion deficit. Obviously something is going sideways here.”

Thomas recommends taxpayers email the Prime Minister or their M-P if they are unhappy with how their money is being spent.