Business
Federal budget fails to ‘break the glass’ on Canada’s economic growth crisis
From the Fraser Institute
By Grady Munro and Jake Fuss
“You’ve seen those signs that say, ‘In emergency, break glass.’ Well, it’s time to break the glass,” said Carolyn Rogers, Bank of Canada senior deputy governor, in a speech last month while warning that Canadians may see living standards fall if nothing is done to promote economic growth.
In advance of the Trudeau government’s 2024 budget released on Tuesday, many called for the government to finally address Canada’s stagnant economic growth. But despite the growing consensus that this issue represents a national crisis, the Trudeau government simply continued with the same approach that helped get us to this point in the first place.
“You’ve seen those signs that say, ‘In emergency, break glass.’ Well, it’s time to break the glass,” said Carolyn Rogers, Bank of Canada senior deputy governor, in a speech last month while warning that Canadians may see living standards fall if nothing is done to promote economic growth.
Ten days later in a joint interview, former Quebec premier Jean Charest and former federal finance minister Bill Morneau urged the Trudeau government to focus on economic growth in the budget. Specifically, Morneau suggested Canada needs more business investment “from other sources than the government.”
These are just two examples of the growing consensus that Canada is suffering an economic and productivity growth crisis.
Economic growth generally refers to the increase in gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the total output of the economy and is driven by three factors—the labour supply, the capital stock and the efficiency in which labour and capital are used.
Canada’s GDP growth in recent years has been driven almost entirely by the labour supply, as the country has experienced historically high population growth. However, although GDP in aggregate has been growing, GDP per person (a common indicator of living standards) has been declining at an alarming rate. Since the second quarter of 2022 (when it peaked post-COVID), inflation-adjusted GDP per person has fallen from $60,178 to $58,111 in the fourth quarter of 2023—and has declined during five of those six quarters, and now sits below where it was at the end of 2014.
Labour productivity, which is the amount of output (GDP) produced per hour worked, has seen a similar decline. Statistics Canada recently reported that the fourth quarter of 2023 represented the first time productivity increased since the beginning of 2022, and that for the prior six quarters labour productivity had declined or remained stagnant.
The consequence of both declining GDP per person and lower productivity, as Carolyn Rogers warned, is a lower standard of living for Canadians. To reverse this crisis, the Trudeau government must address the cause of Canada’s weak economic growth—a severe lack of business investment.
Business investment provides the capital needed to equip workers with the technology and equipment to become more efficient and productive. Yet according to a recent study, from 2014 to 2021, inflation-adjusted business investment per worker in Canada fell from $18,363 to $14,687.
This decline in business investment is partly the result of the Trudeau government’s disinterest in encouraging entrepreneurship and private-sector business investment. Indeed, the government’s approach of high spending, more regulation and significant involvement in the economy has done little to foster widespread economic growth.
And by raising capital gains taxes on individuals and businesses, which the Trudeau government did in this latest budget, in the words of former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, the government is doing “exactly the wrong thing” to boost productivity. Rather, these measures simply provide more reason for people and businesses to invest elsewhere.
This latest Trudeau budget doubles down on a failed approach. Spending is up, government involvement in the economy is increasing, and increased capital gains taxes will only make our investment challenges more difficult. We need a complete reversal in policy to solve our economic growth crisis.
Authors:
Business
Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Jay Goldberg
Thirty-nine hundred dollars – that’s how much the typical two-car Ontario family is spending on gas taxes at the pump this year.
You read that right. That’s not the overall fuel bill. That’s just taxes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeps increasing your gas bill, while Premier Doug Ford is lowering it.
Ford’s latest gas tax cut extension is music to taxpayers’ ears. Ford’s 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut, temporarily introduced in July 2022, is here to stay until at least next June.
Because of the cut, a two-car family has saved more than $1,000 so far. And that’s welcome news for Ontario taxpayers, because Trudeau is planning yet another carbon tax hike next April.
Trudeau has raised the overall tax burden at the pumps every April for the past five years. Next spring, he plans to raise gas taxes by another three cents per litre, bringing the overall gas tax burden for Ontarians to almost 60 cents per litre.
While Trudeau keeps hiking costs for taxpayers at the pumps, premiers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate to blunt the impact of his punitive carbon tax.
Obviously, Ford has stepped up to the plate and has lowered gas taxes. But he’s not alone.
In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew fully suspended the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax for a year. And in Newfoundland, Liberal Premier Andrew Furey cut the gas tax by 8.05 cents per litre for nearly two-and-a-half years.
It’s a tale of two approaches: the Trudeau government keeps making life more expensive at the pumps, while premiers of all stripes are fighting to get costs down.
Families still have to get to work, get the kids to school and make it to hockey practice. And they can’t afford increasingly high gas taxes. Common sense premiers seem to get it, while Ottawa has its head in the clouds.
When Ford announced his gas tax cut extension, he took aim at the Liberal carbon tax mandated by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.
Ford noted the carbon tax is set to rise to 20.9 cents per litre next April, “bumping up the cost of everything once again and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“Our government will always fight against it,” Ford said.
But there’s some good news for taxpayers: reprieve may be on the horizon.
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to axe the carbon tax as soon as he takes office.
With a federal election scheduled for next fall, the federal carbon tax’s days may very well be numbered.
Scrapping the carbon tax would make a huge difference in the lives of everyday Canadians.
Right now, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre. For a family filling up two cars once a week, that’s nearly $24 a week in carbon taxes at the pump.
Scrapping the carbon tax could save families more than $1,200 a year at the pumps. Plus, there would be savings on the cost of home heating, food, and virtually everything else.
While the Trudeau government likes to argue that the carbon tax rebates make up for all these additional costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it’s not so.
The PBO has shown that the typical Ontario family will lose nearly $400 this year due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.
That’s why premiers like Ford, Kinew and Furey have stepped up to the plate.
Canadians pay far too much at the pumps in taxes. While Trudeau hikes the carbon tax year after year, provincial leaders like Ford are keeping costs down and delivering meaningful relief for struggling families.
Agriculture
Sweeping ‘pandemic prevention’ bill would give Trudeau government ability to regulate meat production
From LifeSiteNews
Bill C-293, ‘An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness,’ gives sweeping powers to the federal government in the event of a crisis, including the ability to regulate meat production.
The Trudeau Liberals’ “pandemic prevention and preparedness” bill is set to become law despite concerns raised by Conservative senators that the sweeping powers it gives government, particularly over agriculture, have many concerned.
Bill C-293, or “An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness,” is soon to pass its second reading in the Senate, which all but guarantees it will become law. Last Tuesday in the Senate, Conservative senators’ calls for caution on the bill seemed to fall on deaf ears.
“Being from Saskatchewan I have heard from many farmers who are very concerned about this bill. Now we hear quite a short second reading speech that doesn’t really address some of those major concerns they have about the promotion of alternative proteins and about the phase-out, as Senator Plett was saying, of some of their very livelihoods,” said Conservative Senator Denise Batters during debate of the bill.
Batters asked one of the bill’s proponents, Senator Marie-Françoise Mégie, how they will “alleviate those concerns for them other than telling them that they can come to committee, perhaps — if the committee invites them — and have their say there so that they don’t have to worry about their livelihoods being threatened?”
In response, Mégie replied, “We have to invite the right witnesses and those who will speak about their industry, what they are doing and their concerns. Then we can find solutions with them, and we will do a thorough analysis of the issue. This was done intentionally, and I can provide all these details later. If I shared these details now, I would have to propose solutions myself and I do not have those solutions. I purposely did not present them.”
Bill C-293 was introduced to the House of Commons in the summer of 2022 by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. The House later passed the bill in June of 2024 with support from the Liberals and NDP (New Democratic Party), with the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois opposing it.
Bill C-293 would amend the Department of Health Act to allow the minister of health to appoint a “National pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator from among the officials of the Public Health Agency of Canada to coordinate the activities under the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act.”
It would also, as reported by LifeSiteNews, allow the government to mandate industry help it in procuring products relevant to “pandemic preparedness, including vaccines, testing equipment and personal protective equipment, and the measures that the Minister of Industry intends to take to address any supply chain gaps identified.”
A close look at this bill shows that, if it becomes law, it would allow the government via officials of the Public Health Agency of Canada, after consulting the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and of Industry and provincial governments, to “regulate commercial activities that can contribute to pandemic risk, including industrial animal agriculture.”
Text from the bill also states that the government would be able to “promote commercial activities that can help reduce pandemic risk,” which includes the “production of alternative proteins, and phase out commercial activities that disproportionately contribute to pandemic risk, including activities that involve high-risk species.”
The bill has been blasted by the Alberta government, who warned that it could “mandate the consumption of vegetable proteins by Canadians” as well as allow the “the federal government to tell Canadians what they can eat.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Trudeau government has funded companies that produce food made from bugs. The World Economic Forum, a globalist group with links to the Trudeau government, has as part of its Great Reset agenda the promotion of “alternative” proteins such as insects to replace or minimize the consumption of beef, pork, and other meats that they say have high “carbon” footprints.
Trudeau’s current environmental goals are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” and include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades, as well as curbing red meat and dairy consumption.
-
C2C Journal1 day ago
Mischief Trial of the Century: Inside the Crown’s Bogus, Punitive and Occasionally Hilarious Case Against the Freedom Convoy’s Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, Part I
-
Bruce Dowbiggin2 days ago
Why Canada’s Elites Are Captives To The Kamala Narrative
-
Business1 day ago
Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs
-
Agriculture1 day ago
Sweeping ‘pandemic prevention’ bill would give Trudeau government ability to regulate meat production
-
Economy2 days ago
Gas prices plummet in BC thanks to TMX pipeline expansion
-
Alberta2 days ago
Another Blow To The Carbon Tax
-
Economy2 days ago
One Solution to Canada’s Housing Crisis: Move. Toronto loses nearly half million people to more affordable locations
-
Business2 days ago
Trudeau government spends millions producing podcasts