Canadians have heard a lot of ‘talk,’ but we are still waiting for meaningful action from our new prime minister. The ‘Elbows Up’ crowd are still beating their chest in glee, as they still believe they won something big. So far, it appears Canadians did not win big! Or is hope still on the way?
Some grand pre-election claims and promises were made. In particular, Carney’s self-declared strong capability to talk tariffs with President Trump with assured victory didn’t materialize. They talked, but there was no victory. Since then, Canada Air has zipped around the world to more countries and conferences than I can name, including Davos and NATO, holding meetings with countries we have never dealt with before to make trade deals that fail to make economic sense given they are so far away. And we don’t have a lot to sell, except of course our oil and gas, which is a silencer to the ‘no more oil’ crowd. The process of importing across oceans, docking, unloading, reloading and trucking the products across our vast country makes little sense. The obvious approach is to continue doing what we have done for years – trucking things back and forth across an invisible border to the largest buying market in the world. And furthermore, does anyone seriously believe three flights a week to The Emirates will occur? And for what purpose? I can only guess it would be tourism.
Amidst air travel, there is a massive spending hike commitment of five per cent, adding to an already large federal debt and interest accumulation of $70 billion by 2029, and a $1.24 trillion overall debt. People smarter in finance than me have been warning about a future decline in our quality of life and an even lower Canadian dollar as a consequence of this debt. New York-based credit rating firm Fitch Ratings Inc. suggests that “Canada, with its steep fiscal spending, could increase local debt above 90 per cent of GDP.” And an expected planned total expenditure of $554.5 billion after just one year in office suggests that PM Carney needs to put his ‘ultra-competent former governor of two central banks’ hat back on.
After a surprising trip to China and a commitment to purchase some 45,000+ Chinese EVs in exchange for a drop from their 100 per cent tariff to 15 per cent on our canola and a couple of other smaller concessions, we have angered the USA even more. But of even more importance, it also isn’t sitting well with our fellow Canadians in Ontario! Or was its PM Carney’s reference to “we can now move towards a New World Order” at the end of those negotiations with China that choked so many of us across the country? So, does that mean all those stories that have been circulating for a number of years are not conspiracy theories after all?
Along with PM Carney persuading a couple of ‘not so strong’ Conservatives to cross the aisle to add to his caucus support, getting uninvited from The Peace Board and sending Freeland with $2.5 billion to Ukraine to manage its rebuild also doesn’t sound great for Canada.
On the positive side, however, Pierre Poilievre just had a full-house conference in Calgary and received an 87.4 per cent approval rating. Things just might start looking up!