The Thursday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories
Highlights from the news file for Thursday, Jan. 5
CANADA COULD BE HEADING TOWARD DECADES OF DEFICITS, SAYS REPORT: Federal numbers released quietly by the government late last month are painting a bleak picture of Canada’s financial future — one filled with decades of deficits. The report, published on the Finance Department website two days before Christmas, predicts that barring any policy changes the federal government could be on track to run annual shortfalls until at least 2050-51. The document says that if such a scenario plays out, the federal debt could climb past $1.5 trillion by that same year — more than double its current level. To help explain the prediction, the report points to the major economic challenge caused by the gradual retirement of baby boomers. The demographic shift is expected to shrink work-force participation, erode labour productivity and drive up expenditures for things like elderly benefits.
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‘I WILL FIX IT,’ FORMER SOLDIER SAID BEFORE DEATHS IN NOVA SCOTIA: A clearer picture is emerging of the former soldier involved in an apparent murder-suicide in Nova Scotia, with his own words on social media revealing a man struggling with PTSD who was trying to get his life back. “I’m truly sorry for freaking out at my wife/daughter and people who know me …. I’m not getting a lawyer. I’m getting my life back,” Lionel Desmond wrote in a Dec. 3 Facebook post that did not elaborate. “I apologize for anything out (of) my control. I will fix it, if not I’ll live with it.” Desmond, 33, was found dead Tuesday night in a home in Upper Big Tracadie from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, RCMP say. His wife Shanna Desmond, 31, their 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and his mother Brenda Desmond, 52, also died of apparent gunshot wounds. Friends and family say Desmond was a kind and funny person, who changed after a tour in Afghanistan in 2007.