Canadian households owe more in debt than the total of Canada's GDP. That's first among the G7 and near the top of all the world's developed countries. And as the cost of living increases, if we can't afford to service that debt, things could get bad, quickly.

How did we get ourselves into this situation? Why do we see household debt as a moral failing instead of the product of the country's economic realities? What's to blame for skyrocketing debt, and what could curtail it? And why do we spend so much time thinking about if a government can balance its budget, and so little thinking about how they can help balance ours?

GUEST: Jim Stanford, economist and director of the Centre for Future Work

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