Will Canada's Rising Debt Hit the Proverbial `Wall'? Survey Shows Debt Level Is Second Worst among Industrial Nations

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TIME yourself. When you finish reading this, the interest due on Canada's federal debt will have risen US$306,000. That is $61,000 per minute, $3,660,000 per hour, and an awful lot per year.

Of course, Canada's version of rocketing into the indebtedness stratosphere may not impress Americans numbed by New York City's digital debt clock. The clock piles up United States debt at a considerably faster rate than it accumulates in Canada.

But Canadians have reason to be concerned, economists say, because with an economy and population one-tenth the size of the US, Canada is in much worse financial shape for its size.

Canada's net public debt (gross debt with the …