For the past two decades Canadian politicians of all stripes have told us that it's time to stop "mortgaging our future." They've talked about the unfairness of saddling future generations with a massive public debt, and they've talked about the need to correct the deep flaws inherent in our welfare state entitlements.
But talk is no substitute for action, and all of the hackneyed rhetoric about generational equity has not stopped Canadian governments from racking up debt and liabilities estimated at over $1.7 trillion. That's real money that will have to be repaid by real people whose lives will be forever poorer because of it.
Those Canadians are only now coming of age, and they have hardly begun to realize the staggering volume of wealth that has been transferred, without their consent, from their own future to their parents' and grandparents' past. But sooner or later it will hit home, and when it does, the political consequences won't be pleasant.
This book is a bracing wake-up call to the generation born into debt, and is a warning salvo directed at those who have the power to change the course of public policy before it's too late. In Youthquake , Ezra Levant takes us on an entertaining tour of the decaying edifice of the Canadian welfare state, pointing out its cracks and flaws, all while challenging the political orthodoxies on which it was built.
