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Yes, Canada Day Is Worth Celebrating…

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3 minute read

Submitted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Canada Day commemorates an event that produced one of the most successful and enduring liberal democracies in human history.

And at 156 years old, there is still much to celebrate.

Canada remains a nation where the circumstances of birth do not determine one’s life outcomes. Long before freedom of religion, thought and expression were enshrined in our Charter, they were embedded in our national DNA. Canada was founded on notions of individual liberty that, while rooted in the British liberal tradition, are bequeathed to every Canadian, regardless of origin.

Today, that inheritance is undercut by an activist class that seeks to delegitimize Canada’s political traditions and vilify its history.

MLI defends Canada’s political tradition. 

As the City of Montreal debated what to do with Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue after a mob attacked it, MLI reminded Canadians that our first Prime Minister was a progressive for his time. While local governments caved to the madness of crowds, preemptively removing Macdonald statues and renaming schools bearing his name, we highlighted Macdonald’s outsized contribution to our nation.

When Egerton Ryerson’s statue was toppled by protestors, MLI Senior Fellow, Patrice Dutilwork, defended Ryerson’s record as a friend of the Indigenous people and an advocate for minority rights.

When the City of Toronto claimed Henry Dundas delayed abolition, MLI corrected the record, noting Dundas was a leading abolitionist whose amendment to the 1792 resolution led to the very first statement against slavery.

Sadly, Canadians can no longer rely on their media, academics, or even elected representatives to demand a fair hearing when Canada’s history, founding figures and fundamental values come under attack. Whether captured by progressive orthodoxy, or simply cowardly in the face of controversy, most sacrifice truth to political ends.

MLI speaks out with courage and credibility when others are silent.

The truth is that Canada is well worth celebrating. No nation is without historical wrongdoing, but few have done more than Canada to reconcile with the past and build a better future. Toppling statues, spending millions to rename public infrastructure, and cultivating collective shame is not the path to meaningful reconciliation. Indigenous communities deserve our attention focused on clean water and prosperity building instead.

As MLI Fellow Melissa Mbarki noted when the City of Calgary cancelled Canada Day fireworks in the name of reconciliation, such symbolic declarations are often made without the consent of, or even consultation with, Indigenous people. Shortly after Mbarki’s piece was published, Calgary City Council reversed its decision.

When Canadians stand up together, activist policymakers back down. Watch a video of Melissa’s story below!

As proud Canadians, MLI will always stand on guard for our legacy and defend the traditions that keep us strong and free.

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Business

Canadians should expect even more spending in federal fall economic statement

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From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro

The Trudeau government will soon release its fall economic statement. Though technically intended to be an update on the fiscal plan in this year’s budget, in recent years the fall economic statement has more closely resembled a “mini-budget” that unveils new (and often significant) spending commitments and initiatives.

Let’s look at the data.

The chart below includes projections of annual federal program spending from a series of federal budgets and updates, beginning with the 2022 budget and ending with the latest 2024 budget. Program spending equals total spending minus debt interest costs, and represents discretionary spending by the federal government.

Clearly, there’s a trend that with every consecutive budget and fiscal update the Trudeau government revises spending estimates upwards. Take the last two fiscal years, 2023/24 and 2024/25, for example. Budget 2022 projected annual program spending of $436.5 billion for the 2023/24 fiscal year. Yet the fall economic statement released just months later revised that spending estimate up to $449.8 billion, and later releases showed even higher spending.

The issue is even more stark when examining spending projections for the current fiscal year. Budget 2022 projected annual spending of $441.6 billion in 2024/25. Since then, every subsequent fiscal release has revised that estimate higher and higher, to the point that Budget 2024 estimates program spending of $483.6 billion for this year—representing a $42.0 billion increase from the projections only two years ago.

Meanwhile, as spending estimates are revised upwards, plans to reduce the federal deficit are consistently pushed off into later years.

For example, the 2022 fall economic statement projected a deficit of $25.4 billion for the 2024/25 fiscal year, and declining deficits in the years to come, before reaching an eventual surplus of $4.5 billion in 2027/28. However, subsequent budgets and fiscal updates again revised those estimates. The latest budget projects a deficit of $39.8 billion in 2024/25 that will decline to a $26.8 billion deficit by 2027/28. In other words, though budgets and fiscal updates have consistently projected declining deficits between 2024/25 and 2027/28, each subsequent document has produced larger deficits throughout the fiscal outlook and pushed the timeline for balanced budgets further into the future.

These data illustrate the Trudeau government’s lack of accountability to its own fiscal plans. Though the unpredictable nature of forecasting means the government is unlikely to exactly meet future projections, it’s still reasonable to expect it will roughly follow its own fiscal plans. However, time and time again Canadians have been sold a certain plan, only to have it change dramatically mere months later due to the government’s unwillingness to restrain spending. We shouldn’t expect the upcoming fall economic statement to be any different.

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International

Trump appoints Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to lead new Department of Government Efficiency

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From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

The president-elect has set a deadline of July 4, 2026, to ‘drive out the massive waste and fraud’ in the U.S. government.

President-elect Donald Trump announced that Elon Musk will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with businessman and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal agencies — Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,” Trump announced Tuesday on Truth Social.

Trump explained that the agency will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before.”

The president assigned the duo a deadline of July 4, 2026, to “drive out the massive waste and fraud” that plagues our government budget, which has reached a mammoth size: $6.5 trillion per year.

Mogul and X owner Musk, who has been outspoken about the big problem of government waste, noted Tuesday that if the government is not made efficient, the country will go “bankrupt.”

He reposted a clip from a recent talk he gave in which he explained that not only is our defense budget “pretty gigantic” — a trillion dollars —but the interest the U.S. now owes on its debt is higher than this.

“This is not sustainable. That’s why we need the Department of Government Efficiency,” Musk said.

The U.S. debt has doubled since 2015 to reach $35.46 trillion, according to statistics shared by investor Mario Nawfal.

Musk has also shared to X reports that the Government Accountability Office “estimates the federal government wastes $247B in taxpayer money each year,” and that the Department of the Treasury reported $24.5B in “unreconciled transactions” — which means unknown items — in the past.

Ramaswamy has similarly called for a “massive downsizing” of government bureaucracy after his appointment to DOGE.

Musk responded on X, “This is the only way.”

Ramaswamy has made clear, as has Musk, that cutting regulations is a key part of their mission at DOGE. Ramaswamy maintains that “eliminating bureaucratic regulations isn’t a mere policy preference” but “a legal *mandate* from the U.S. Supreme Court.” He cited on X the Supreme Court decision that, for example, “agencies cannot decide major questions of economic or political significance without ‘clear congressional authorization.’”

Musk shared Tuesday that all DOGE actions “will be posted online for maximum transparency,” adding, “Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!”

Commentators have observed that Musk has already demonstrated a knack for organizational efficiency through his streamlining of the social media platform Twitter, which Musk rebranded as X.

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