Economy
Trudeau has more than doubled Canada’s debt while Canadians get poorer
From LifeSiteNews
46 percent of Canadians are a few hundred dollars away from not being able to meet their financial obligations… 400,000 more Canadians live in poverty now compared to 2020.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has more than doubled Canada’s national debt, but Canadian’s quality of life has only decreased.
According to calculations from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), Canada’s national debt has more than doubled since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, reaching a total of $1.239 trillion.
“Canadians can’t afford another decade-and-a-half debt binge,” Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director, said in a . “Trudeau needs to stop wasting so much money and balance the books, because it’s wrong to waste billions on debt interest payments.”
When Trudeau took office in November 2015, Canada’s federal debt was just $616 billion.
Despite this doubling of the national debt, the Trudeau government does not plan to balance the budget until 2040, according to supplementary data from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
Currently, every Canadian owes $31,000 of the debt, however, interest charges between now and the time the budget is balanced in 2040 will mean that the number is much higher. By 2040, interest charges on the federal debt will have cost taxpayers a whopping $847 billion, meaning each Canadian will owe an additional $18,000.
“Waiting until 2040 to balance the budget is outrageous and the government won’t even hit that target if the economy has a hiccup or politicians can’t say no to new spending,” Terrazzano said. “This government has given taxpayers every reason to believe it will never balance the budget.”
While the national debt has skyrocketed, and the government continues to spend money hand-over-fist, the quality of living for Canadians is plummeting. Instead of addressing this, Trudeau continues to send tax dollars to Ukraine and subsidizing a variety of ideologically motivated causes that provide no material benefit to Canadians.
In July, a survey found that a massive 46 percent of Canadians are a few hundred dollars away from not being able to meet their financial obligations.
Similarly, in June, a government report revealed that 400,000 more Canadians live in poverty now compared to 2020.
LifeSiteNews reported that fast-rising food costs in Canada have led to many people feeling a sense of “hopelessness and desperation” with nowhere to turn for help, according to the Canadian government’s own National Advisory Council on Poverty.
At the same time Canadians are being driven into poverty, housing prices have skyrocketed, with a recent analysis estimating that a Canadian household now has to spend an unprecedented 63.5% of its income to afford a mortgage.
At the same time, criminal incidents under the Trudeau government have increased 20 percent, with critics placing the blame on Trudeau’s “catch and release” policy, which allows dangerous criminals to walk free on bail.
Indeed, this policy has put many Canadians in danger, as was the case last month when a Brampton man charged with sexually assaulting a 3-year-old was reportedly out on bail for an October 2022 incident in which he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a dangerous weapon.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, a well-known Ottawa think tank warned that Canada’s justice system is unable to keep up with out-of-control crime that has risen sharply in the last few decades to the point where the national murder rate is at its highest in 30 years.
Economy
The White Pill: Big Government Can Be Defeated (Just Ask the Soviet Union)
From StosselTV
People have been “black pilled” to think the world is doomed. Michael Malice says there’s hope.
In his book, “The White Pill,” he argues that tyrannical regimes, like the Soviet Union, can be toppled.
Today, media and universities distort history, and push socialism. It used to be worse. The New York Times once covered up Stalin’s famine, even as millions starved. Why? Malice says it’s because NYT star reporter Walter Duranty liked communism’s utopian promises, and status he got from his exclusive Stalin interviews.
Malice says the fall of the Soviet Union should give us hope that America can resist the universities and media’s brainwashing – or any tyranny that someone is “black pilled” about.
Our video explains Malice’s “white pill” and why you might want to take it.
After 40+ years of reporting, I now understand the importance of limited government and personal freedom.
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Libertarian journalist John Stossel created Stossel TV to explain liberty and free markets to young people.
Prior to Stossel TV he hosted a show on Fox Business and co-anchored ABC’s primetime newsmagazine show, 20/20.
Stossel’s economic programs have been adapted into teaching kits by a non-profit organization, “Stossel in the Classroom.” High school teachers in American public schools now use the videos to help educate their students on economics and economic freedom. They are seen by more than 12 million students every year.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Other honors include the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.
Links
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To get our new weekly video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://www.johnstossel.com/#subscribe
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Alberta
Ford and Trudeau are playing checkers. Trump and Smith are playing chess
By Dan McTeague
Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry.
There’s no doubt about it: Donald Trump’s threat of a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods (to be established if the Canadian government fails to take sufficient action to combat drug trafficking and illegal crossings over our southern border) would be catastrophic for our nation’s economy. More than $3 billion in goods move between the U.S. and Canada on a daily basis. If enacted, the Trump tariff would likely result in a full-blown recession.
It falls upon Canada’s leaders to prevent that from happening. That’s why Justin Trudeau flew to Florida two weeks ago to point out to the president-elect that the trade relationship between our countries is mutually beneficial.
This is true, but Trudeau isn’t the best person to make that case to Trump, since he has been trashing the once and future president, and his supporters, both in public and private, for years. He did so again at an appearance just the other day, in which he implied that American voters were sexist for once again failing to elect the nation’s first female president, and said that Trump’s election amounted to an assault on women’s rights.
Consequently, the meeting with Trump didn’t go well.
But Trudeau isn’t Canada’s only politician, and in recent days we’ve seen some contrasting approaches to this serious matter from our provincial leaders.
First up was Doug Ford, who followed up a phone call with Trudeau earlier this week by saying that Canadians have to prepare for a trade war. “Folks, this is coming, it’s not ‘if,’ it is — it’s coming… and we need to be prepared.”
Ford said that he’s working with Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to put together a retaliatory tariff list. Spokesmen for his government floated the idea of banning the LCBO from buying American alcohol, and restricting the export of critical minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries (I’m sure Trump is terrified about that last one).
But Ford’s most dramatic threat was his announcement that Ontario is prepared to shut down energy exports to the U.S., specifically to Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, if Trump follows through with his plan. “We’re sending a message to the U.S. You come and attack Ontario, you attack the livelihoods of Ontario and Canadians, we’re going to use every tool in our toolbox to defend Ontarians and Canadians across the border,” Ford said.
Now, unfortunately, all of this chest-thumping rings hollow. Ontario does almost $500 billion per year in trade with the U.S., and the province’s supply chains are highly integrated with America’s. The idea of just cutting off the power, as if you could just flip a switch, is actually impossible. It’s a bluff, and Trump has already called him on it. When told about Ford’s threat by a reporter this week, Trump replied “That’s okay if he does that. That’s fine.”
And Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry. Just over the past year Ford and Trudeau have been seen side by side announcing their $5 billion commitment to Honda, or their $28.2 billion in subsidies for new Stellantis and Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plants.
Their assumption was that the U.S. would be a major market for Canadian EVs. Remember that “vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value, at $51 billion in 2023 of which 93% was exported to the U.S.,”according to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, and “Auto is Ontario’s top export at 28.9% of all exports (2023).”
But Trump ran on abolishing the Biden administration’s de facto EV mandate. Now that he’s back in the White House, the market for those EVs that Trudeau and Ford invested in so heavily is going to be much softer. Perhaps they’d like to be able to blame Trump’s tariffs for the coming downturn rather than their own misjudgment.
In any event, Ford’s tactic stands in stark contrast to the response from Alberta, Canada’s true energy superpower. Premier Danielle Smith made it clear that her province “will not support cutting off our Alberta energy exports to the U.S., nor will we support a tariff war with our largest trading partner and closest ally.”
Smith spoke about this topic at length at an event announcing a new $29-million border patrol team charged with combatting drug trafficking, at which said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” Her deputy premier Mike Ellis was quoted as saying, “The concerns that president-elect Trump has expressed regarding fentanyl are, quite frankly, the same concerns that I and the premier have had.” Smith and Ellis also criticized Ottawa’s progressively lenient approach to drug crimes.
(For what it’s worth, a recent Léger poll found that “Just 29 per cent of [Canadians] believe Trump’s concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking from Canada to the U.S. are unwarranted.” Perhaps that’s why some recent polls have found that Trudeau is currently less popular in Canada than Trump at the moment.)
Smith said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” And on X/Twitter she said, “Now is the time to… reach out to our friends and allies in the U.S. to remind them just how much Americans and Canadians mutually benefit from our trade relationship – and what we can do to grow that partnership further,” adding, “Tariffs just hurt Americans and Canadians on both sides of the border. Let’s make sure they don’t happen.”
This is exactly the right approach. Smith knows there is a lot at stake in this fight, and is not willing to step into the ring in a fight that Canada simply can’t win, and will cause a great deal of hardship for all involved along the way.
While Trudeau indulges in virtue signaling and Ford in sabre rattling, Danielle Smith is engaging in true statesmanship. That’s something that is in short supply in our country these days.
As I’ve written before, Trump is playing chess while Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford are playing checkers. They should take note of Smith’s strategy. Honey will attract more than vinegar, and if the long history of our two countries tell us anything, it’s that diplomacy is more effective than idle threats.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
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