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24 facts for 2024—Canadians should understand impact of government policies

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From the Fraser Institute

By Niels Veldhuis

With a better understanding of the impact of government policies, Canadians will be better able to hold politicians accountable and make informed decisions at the ballot box. With the calendar now turned to 2024, here are 24 facts for Canadians to consider.

Canada’s Economic Crisis

  1. Average per-person incomes in Canada have stagnated from 2016 ($54,154) to 2022 ($55,863). Meanwhile, the United States has seen an increase from $65,792 to $73,565. The average Canadian now earns $17,700 less annually than the average American.
  2. Canada ranks just below Louisiana ($57,954) in average per-person income and slightly ahead Kentucky ($54,671). Is this the company we want to keep?
  3. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada will be the worst-performing advanced economy from 2020 to 2030 and from 2030 to 2060.
  4. Canada’s economic growth crisis is due in large part to the decline in business investment. Business investment per worker in Canada declined by 20 per cent since 2014, from $18,363 to $14,687.
  5. In 2014, Canada invested about 79 cents per worker for every dollar invested in the United States—in 2021, investment was 55 cents for every U.S. dollar.
  6. We’ve witnessed a massive flight of capital from Canada since 2014, to the tune of more than $285 billion.
  7. From the onset of the COVID recession in February 2020 to June 2023, the number of government jobs across the country increased by 11.8 per cent compared to only 3.3 per cent in the private sector (including the self-employed).

Fiscal Crisis: Imprudent Spending and Massive Deficits

  1. The Trudeau government has increased annual spending (not including interest payments on its debt) by nearly 75 per cent since 2014, from $256 billion in 2014-15 to a projected $453 billion in 2023-24.
  2. With federal spending at nearly $11,500 per Canadian, the Trudeau government is on track to record the five highest levels of per-person spending in Canadian history.
  3. A large portion of government spending in Canada goes to pay for the 4.1 million federal, provincial and local government employees. Government employees across Canada—including federal, provincial and municipal workers—are paid 31.3 per cent higher wages (on average) than workers in the private sector. Even after adjusting for differences (education, tenure, type of work, occupation, etc.) government employees are still paid 8.5 per cent higher wages.
  4. The Trudeau government has used large increases in borrowing and tax increases to finance this spending. Federal debt has ballooned to $1.9 trillion (2022-23) will reach a projected $2.4 trillion by 2027/28.
  5. Combined federal and provincial debt in Canada has nearly doubled from $1.18 trillion in 2007/08 (the year before the last recession) to a projected $2.18 trillion this year.Infographic 1

Tax Increases and Canada’s Affordability Crisis

  1. To pay for all this spending, the total tax bill for the average Canadian family was $48,199 or 45.3 per cent per cent of its income—more than what the average family spends on housing, food and clothing combined.Infographic 2
  2. Housing and grocery costs dominated the news last year but in 2022 the average family spent $1,452 more on housing and $996 more on food while governments extracted an extra $4,566 from the average family in taxes.
  3. While the federal government has claimed it “cut taxes for middle-class Canadians everywhere,” in reality 86 per cent of middle-class families in Canada are paying higher income taxes under the government’s personal income tax changes. And that doesn’t account for carbon taxes, etc.
  4. More than 60 per cent of lower-income families (those in the bottom 20 per cent of earners) in Canada now pay higher federal income taxes because of the federal government’s tax changes.
  5. Seventy-four per cent of Canadians surveyed believe the average family is being overtaxed by the federal, provincial and local governments.

Damaging Energy and Environment Policy

  1. In the federal government, there’s a common belief that the Canadian economy is undergoing a fundamental and rapid transition towards “clean/green” industries. Yet despite massive regulations and subsidies, Statistics Canada data shows that Canada’s “green” economy amounts to only about 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and directly employs roughly 1.6 per cent of all jobs.
  2. The recent United Nations climate change conference pushed for a “transition away from fossil fuels.” Despite significant spending on “clean energy”, from 1995 to 2022, the amount of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) consumed worldwide actually increased by nearly 59 per cent.
  3. Canada has an opportunity to serve the world with its energy and resources and, in doing so, benefit our allies and improve both world energy security and the environment. But the federal government doesn’t see it that way. How else could one explain the latest singling out of Canada’s oil and gas sector through an arbitrary cap on greenhouse gas emissions, even though the sector only represents 26 per cent of Canada’s total GHG emissions? Even if Canada eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions expected from the oil and gas sector in 2030, the reduction would equal only 0.004 per cent of global emissions while imposing huge costs.Infographic 3
  4. As a result of new federal energy efficiency regulations, the cost of a newly constructed home in Canada will increase by $55,000, on average, by 2030 because of the federal government’s stricter energy efficiency regulations for buildings. Rather than increasing the costs of new homes, governments should help close the gap between supply and demand.

Our Failing Health-Care System

  1. How good is our health-care system? Canada’s average health-care wait times hit 27.7 weeks in 2023—the longest ever recorded and nearly 200 per cent longer than the 9.3 weeks in 1993 when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times.
  2. Among a group of 30 high-income countries that have universally accessible health care, Canada spends the most money on health care as a percentage of GDP.
  3. Despite this high spending, we are a poor performer. Among this group, Canada had the longest wait lists and ranked:
    • 28th (out of 30) for the number of doctors
    • 23rd (out of 29) for the number of hospital beds available
    • 23rd (out of 29) for the number of psychiatric beds available
    • 25th (out of 29) for the number of MRI machines
    • 26th (out of 30) for CT scanners

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Business

Opposition leader Poilievre calling for end of prorogation to deal with Trump’s tariffs

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From Conservative Party Communications

The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, released the following statement on the threat of tariffs from the US:

“Canada is facing a critical challenge. On February 1st we are facing the risk of unjustified 25% tariffs by our largest trading partner that would have damaging consequences across our country. Our American counterparts say they want to stop the illegal flow of drugs and other criminal activity at our border. The Liberal government admits their weak border is a problem. That is why they announced a multibillion-dollar border plan—a plan they cannot fund because they shut down Parliament, preventing MPs and Senators from authorizing the funds.

“We also need retaliatory tariffs, something that requires urgent Parliamentary consideration.

“Yet, Liberals have shut Parliament in the middle of this crisis. Canada has never been so weak, and things have never been so out of control. Liberals are putting themselves and their leadership politics ahead of the country. Freeland and Carney are fighting for power rather than fighting for Canada.

“Common Sense Conservatives are calling for Trudeau to reopen Parliament now to pass new border controls, agree on trade retaliation and prepare a plan to rescue Canada’s weak economy.

“The Prime Minister has the power to ask the Governor General to cut short prorogation and get our Parliament working.

“Open Parliament. Take back control. Put Canada First.”

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Carbon Tax

Carbon tax tripping up Liberal leadership hopefuls

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The Liberals and progressives everywhere were so close.  At the height of their influence, no one, certainly anywhere in the English speaking world could make this claim: “Climate change IS NOT an existential threat to planet earth.” Those who did were immediately sidelined, ostracized by their cohorts, dismissed by corporate media and social media behemoths. Sure the battle still rages, but only in their information world where you still see phrases like “climate change denialist”.

You see their information world has not yet realized something new has happened.  History writers will say Elon Musk stopped the progressives in their tracks by buying Twitter, releasing the Twitter files and eventually with Donald Trump, swinging the information world in the direction of X.  If you have doubts just look at this picture.  While the Twitter files reveal the new information world was under the, let’s say ‘secret influence’ of the White House, this photo shows those same tech power brokers are publicly, and happily celebrating the man they worked secretly to bring down.  Or at least they’re not ashamed to publicly text their friends about it. The fact they’re not hiding probably reveals their eager support.

Sometimes we find it’s the people we look down our noses at who make all the difference.  Like those overweight beer-guzzling hunter types who wear the red hats. (No not the Roman Cardinals, but the Appalachian trailer house occupants). These conspiracy theorists started to proclaim that the world would in fact not burn up by next weekend.  Sure many of these seemed to be the same people who claim the world is flat and their neighbor is from another planet.  But then more people stepped forward.  Not about ‘pancake Earth’, but about the existential threat of climate change.

Family members and friends scorned and ridiculed them, and many still do.  They were outraged that a regular citizen would dare to share information from a completely sane climate scientist or researcher who did not agree with the majority. They’d lose their marbles on those silly enough to cite a peer reviewed scientific paper.  IF anyone was bold enough to take the time to read an entire report from NASA or Environment Canada, well you’d certainly hear someone say “You fool! You can’t do your own research!! You’re not a scientist!!”

Fortunately, funny man podcaster Jimmy Dore has the perfect comeback for these situations.  Dore says when his own friends warned him only a Conspiracy Theorist would do his own research, he replied “You know before COVID doing your own research used to be called… reading”.  It’s really worth two minutes to check this out.  If you don’t find it funny, really funny, then I’m sorry. One day you will.

Speaking of reading, in the days before the printing press the Church and various wildly wealthy monarchs had a stranglehold on information sharing.  Those who contradicted the party line could have their heads chopped off by a guillotine bought and paid for with their meagre tax offerings, or, they could expect to be publicly shamed and eternally condemned by their local preacher.  Sure some of them probably deserved it but who am I to judge?

Then the printing press was invented. At first the Church leaders said, “Great now everyone can be educated, learn to read and even write themselves, and study the Bible on their own!”  Eventually some of those same leaders said, “THIS IS A DISASTER! Everyone can be educated, learn to read and even write themselves, and study the Bible on their own!”  After a few centuries the power structures in Europe completely changed.  The Church divided into thousands of Protestant movements and the Catholic Church forever lost the political clout it never should have appreciated.  Universities sprung up around libraries. Monarchs handed over power to early democratic governments. Books about science lead to scientific innovations. Average Joe’s eventually moved from underground mud huts to middle class condos in the sky.

Well the same thing is happening now with the internet.  Except at breakneck  speed.  What took the printing press hundreds of years to accomplish, takes the internet a few months.  The emergence and re-emergence of Trump Presidencies, revolutions against power structures, could not have been accomplished without the way we get information on the internet.

Sure there’s a lot of murky confusion as corporate media used to their powerful podiums of the printing press and cable tv are moving their content over to the new medium.  But they’re being (sorry it’s all over, they have been) overtaken by the new form of information sharing.  We’ve gone from headlines and ten second sound bites, to three hour long conversations with plenty of time for explaining and context.  That’s something cable tv just didn’t have enough bandwidth to deliver.

So what does this mean for people trying to buy 1,200 square foot condos in Canada today?

Well we get to watch the power brokers struggle to retain their grip on / over our lives.

Those running to replace the son of … Hmm. Here’s a perfect example. Depending upon where you get your information from he’s either the son of Pierre, or he has an incomprehensively uncanny and impossibly accidental resemblance to a close personal family friend.

Those running to replace Liberal Leader Justin (let’s leave the last name out until the DNA results are back) definitely believe his father is Pierre. They believe Russians are our enemies.  They think COVID vaccines saved the world. They think NATO is protecting Ukraine. And they certainly believe if we pay higher taxes in Canada we’ll save the world from the temperatures many of us pay thousands of dollars to escape to for a few days for six months of the year.

Carney, Gould, and Freeland don’t seem to realize everyday Canadians are simply done with the idea that a Carbon Tax in any form is going to save the world.  Thanks to the internet, regular folks/voters have had time to do a little reading and listen to a few long conversations about this.  Average people are understanding that CO2 makes up not 40% or 60% of the atmosphere, but .04%.  Of that .04%, less than 4% is caused by humans. Mathematically it’s silly to think that paying more for food and groceries and everything else in Rosetown, Saskatchewan or Red Deer, Alberta is going to stop, slow down, or make any difference at all to global temperatures in 20 years.

It’s ironic that it’s the modern progressive movement who are stuck in the old information age.  You’d think the slower thinking conservatives would hold on to the old ways and they’d be the ones trying to enforce restrictions on the new communication movement.  Somehow the self proclaimed forward looking progressives are the ones trying to censor.  Maybe it does make sense.  Conservatives are more likely to read their history.  They know the ones who censor are always trying to retain their failing grasp on power.  New information consumers are ready, willing, and annoyingly attempting to debate.  But there’s no debate for those who say “The science is settled.” I guess that means they’re all finished learning things.

Sorry to the Liberal Leadership hopefuls.  They haven’t heard the news.  Well actually they have and that’s the problem.  Instead of paying attention to what’s really happening, they’re dismissing everything and everyone who doesn’t appear on the cable news channels.. other than to be ridiculed that is.

I leave you with this short video from Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.  Franco explains how those vying for control of the PMO are tripping over their new versions of an old and failed Carbon Tax. Pity them. They don’t realize voters have moved on.

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