Mark Carney is master of his own marketing...

His slogans, yes he uses slogans, sound grand while his actions don’t match the rhetoric.

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Carney sure loves a good slogan…

Mark Carney’s second budget certainly didn’t live up to it’s name.

“MASTERS OF OUR DESTINY” the budget document proclaims on the front page.

With a title like that you’d expect something bold and visionary.

Nope.

Just like Carney’s call to think big, act bigger, and move at speeds not seen in generations, this destiny thing is just a marketing ploy - a slogan you might say. Do any of you remember back in the election when Carney claimed the Pierre Poilievre was just about slogans? Clearly Carney has plenty of his own slogans and he’s not afraid to use them.

Especially when telling you about the increasing dangerous and divided world.

Yes, that makes it into the budget.

“The world is more dangerous and more divided. The international rules-based order has been replaced by one that is far less secure, all while rapid technological change is expanding the fields of conflict.”

“As conflict continues in Europe and the Middle East, Canadians know the world is more dangerous and divided. That is why we have moved quickly to ensure Canada can defend its sovereignty, protect its interests, and support its allies.”

There are also variations using just dangerous or just divided.

You get the point.

But what to make of the budget…

John Ivison over at National Post calls it a Liberal spending spree and he’s right. It’s more than $600 billion in spending including a $62 billion deficit and just over $60 billion for interest payments on the debt.

By 2030-31 the interest payments on the debt are expected to be $85.5 billion.

As Ivison points out, none of this has slowed down the Liberal desire to find new ways to spend.

I counted new measures worth $137 billion over the next five years.

We can argue their merits, but they are being paid for with borrowed money and are part of the reason that public debt charges are forecast to rise from $60 billion this year to $85.5 billion within five years. That will mean 13.5 cents of every dollar in revenue will be spent on interest by 2030. Arguably, half of the new money should have gone toward reducing the deficit.

My own take on the budget from last night can be found here. Lots of spending, little of the reform we needed to reshape our economy for this new era.

I’ll have an episode of the Full Comment Podcast coming out on Monday about the budget plus interviews with Conservative finance critic Michael Chong and Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner - she’s on the crazy immigration plan contained in the budget.

That’s the issue I was writing about today for the Toronto Sun, give this column a read. It breaks down the insanity of the 580,000 new permanent resident plan.

I’ll post those interviews here on Monday.

Batra’s Burning Questions on the budget…

Chatted with Toronto Sun editor in chief Adrienne Batra and editor in chief emeritus Lorrie Goldstein on Friday.

I mentioned the tax reforms that I called for in this column earlier this week.

In the newsletter tomorrow, I’ll expand on the tax reform package that I’m putting forward. There is only so much that you can put into a 700 word column.