The provincial opposition finance critic says new statistics released from Bankruptcy Canada are very alarming, in a number of ways.

Tony Wakeham says the number of people in Newfoundland and Labrador who can’t pay their bills is growing.

Wakeham says the stats show a 13.7% increase in bankruptcies filed by consumers, a 58.3% increase filed by businesses, 7.7% filed by corporations and a 118.2% increase by individual businesses who have filed for bankruptcy.

Wakeham says the Liberal government focused on the tax side of the budget and not enough on their own expenditure side. He says government needs to stimulate the economy by diversifying it.

He says they promised they would look at their own expenditure levels, and haven’t done it.

Wakeham says if you want to shrink an economy, the simplest way to do it is to take money put of the pockets of people and put it in the pockets of government, and that’s what happened.

People have less money to spend, and with that the economy shrinks.

Wakeham says the Ball governments’ approach is pushing more and more people in the province over the edge and into financial ruin.