Canadians are right to despair over a dysfunctional Canada

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Trudeau warned a group of global progressives meeting in Montreal that the biggest challenge facing them and the implementation of their economic and social vision is poor communications. As I outline in today’s article, I think the problems run far deeper than that.

The Trudeau government came to office with heterodox views about the role of state in the economy, the causes and sources of economic growth, and the trade-offs between equity and efficiency. The past seven years have provided an opportunity for the prime minister and his team to test their policymaking hypotheses.

Mounting evidence shows that they were wrong. That government is no substitute for market forces, that growth comes from entrepreneuralism and innovation rather than redistribution, and that just because you call a policy “pro-efficiency” (e.g. childcare) doesn’t make it so.

At this point, it seems clear to virtually everyone besides the Prime Minister that the problem isn’t the government’s communications. It’s its ideas.

I have never seen Canada in such a depressed stat, even in the 80’s there was hope. JT has talked about
many issues saying they were unacceptable and not seeming to realize his policies are the cause.. He certainly doesn’t show that he has any understanding of economics or how to make a country prosper.He has quashed some industries while giving millions in handouts to others and wasting billions of dollars
on his own personal spending habits too numerous to mention here.Most Canadians are aware.

When any organization of any size has no leadership it will fail.
A country is no different. Trudeau makes decisions only for political benefit and not for for the benefit of the country as a whole. That combined with his pet NDP lap dog creates a huge sinkhole with no real options.
The situation is grim in my opinion and I am not sure the population will grasp, or care, about the issues when the election takes place.

One missing element in the discussion pertains to Canadian’s underlying fear of the type of policies the Trudeau Government might be capable of implememtimg in future. In the past, Canadians never in their wildest dreams considered that their government would freeze their assets. Many Canadians still cannot understand why they can’t find employment following Covid. Trudeau recently stated that he still has a great deal of work to do. Canadians should be fearful of the type of work he is refering to and the unimagined consequences of that work.

One demographic that it seems no-one thinks about is seniors that cannot work any longer, yet have not been able to build their portfolios to a level that will sustain themselves to say, anticipated max death date. I know a couple that have worked all their lives, second marriage for each, have owned their own homes in the past, but due to adverse events now have to rent. Mid seventies, one can’t work and the other needs to stay home and care for him. They had anticipated that if they lived a moderate but frugal life they should be ok till they died. Not anymore. The brutally rising rent costs and brutally rising food costs have dispensed with that hope. They have decided they won’t live in some rat hole the rest of their lives just to save $800 a month. I asked them what are they going to do if the money runs out? MAID was their answer; there’s a difference between living and barely surviving. The concluded that at that point, all they would be is a drain on the social system, and there would be no pride left. It’s pathetic that our country has come to this, and Trudeau’s bureaucracy has been known to suggest this route.

It is really depressing when you see the debt load Canadians have to shoulder, the amount of taxes on taxes we pay, the tight, friendly relationship between our government, the banks, and big corporations. Canadians have a hard time to pay their way, eat, put gas in the car to go to work, rents have taken off like a rocket to Mars, but…a government announcement today gives another 30 odds millions for Ukraine. I also have a hard time taking the lack of transparency, the lack of giving answers when they are asked questions by our elected government PM and ministers. They show a disdainful attitude towards Canadians.

Alas, today’s (Sept 18) forum is already spiraling. Despair may be the inevitable and rapid destination on establishing a thoughtful and nuanced discourse on POLICY.
example 1: “…hard-right conservatism of Pierre Poilievre”
example 2: “The communists of the NDP…”
example 3: WEF, UN, et al something something vague

Like so many other Canadians, I am disappointed in Justin Trudeau. However, I fear the hard-right conservatism of Pierre Poilievre. Look what it has done to fracture the USA. For most of my long life, I was a Conservative, often actually paying a membership fee. Not now. The Conservatives have taken a righthand turn that I just can’t support. In recent years, I have been a member of the Green Party. I am only sorry that they haven’t made a better showing, but as I see it, there is no other option.

I don’t know where I sit on the Despair Index, but if it’s on the usual scale of 1 to 10, worsening as it ascends, I’d say about a six.
I’m quite healthy for my age and have a home mortgage free, BUT with the price of everything rising way beyond what the official inflation stats will admit, my modest but sufficient pension has shrunk drastically. I can no longer afford to travel, had to sell my 25 year old motor home bought in my working days, gas is simply too pricey, can’t afford hotel or motel rooms or air travel, so I’m stuck in my home area.

But worse: I can’t afford most restaurants and roast beef is out of the question in my shopping cart. Most usual items such as fish, beef, lamb, shell fish are now out of reach and the price of vegetables has soared way beyond the official statistics, which are calculated by a disingenuous method. And that is the reality for millions of people whose low or fixed income was adequate three years ago, but now only meets about 50% of their needs.

To add insult to injury, the federal government insists on forcing a carbon tax on us that has no effect on the world’s greenhouse gases. To compound the insult, Canada sells China 30 million tons of coal per year, which is burned with little pollution control, and combines to produce 27% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

This government seems to care about other countries more than this country. I realize I’m far below the despair index of millions of Canadians, and am grateful for what I do have, but I can only watch the future approaching with despair.

We are governed by people with no idea of our plight,and no solutions to any of our problems,an d frankly, I don’t think they give a damn.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman has written about what he referred to as ‘negativity bias’ where essentially people perceive that things are in pretty rough shape despite the real actual economic indicators proving otherwise. This is surely the case in Canada at the moment where we are experiencing a huge disconnect between what is actually happening in the economy and how people who are ideologically opposed to this government are perceiving it. Canada has been through times when inflation and unemployment were much worse issues. Crime has been higher in the past but people will scarcely believe that too. The US and Canada are looking like they have steered the post Covid surge of inflation into a soft landing where we will not experience a long, sharp recession. The stats bear this out but many people will ignore the facts and stick to feelings.