Running out of Money

The Prince Edward Island deficit, CBC reports, was $83.3 million last year.

This is roughly $850 for each registered elector, and about $1,000 for each employed person.

As at the last budget, PEI’s debt was $1.16 billion. That’s about $11,000 per elector, and about $14,000 per employed person.

Our budget for this year requires about $90 million to pay interest on the debt.

It strikes me that I’ve never heard anyone in Prince Edward Island, politician or no, suggest any mechanism by which we’re going to pay this money back to the people we owe it to. It’s like a giant unspoken impossibility. That will go on forever.