Canada is suffering from low productivity

Trudeau is to blame

Every since Justin Trudeau became Liberal Party leader in 2013, Canadian productivity has been a slow moving train wreck, with the decline accelerating since Trudeau was re-elected in the 2019 election he called to extend his time in power.

Canadian Productivity Trend (change in real GDP per hour worked)

Compared to other countries, Canadian productivity now compares poorly to Europe and Australia and ranks in the basement with such economic stalwarts as United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy and Japan.

Trudeau’s reckless spending, attacks on Canadian resource industries, needless taxes including the nonsensical carbon tax, and opaque and subjective laws on major capital projects have made Canada uninvestable for many companies. In parallel, Trudeau has encouraged immigration at unprecedented levels without policies to develop the infrastructure (homes, schools, hospitals) to accommodate the newcomers, causing population levels to soar while GDP per capita kept falling. The Bank of Canada now sees Canadian productivity at “crisis levels”.

No one should be surprised that the Canadian economy is in trouble. Trudeau has more than doubled the national debt which is now well over $1 trillion, squashed plans to build pipelines to deep water to expand energy exports with the exception of expanding the TransMountain Pipeline which his government purchased and managed so poorly the expansion costs ballooned from single digit billions to over $30 billion and is not yet complete. If you elect an incompetent leader, you get crappy results.

Trudeau enacted the opaque and subjective Impact Assessment Act, putting major barriers in the way of capital projects, only to have the Supreme Court find the new Act unconstitutional, used the renamed War Measures Act to suppress a protest against his policies jailing people without charges, seizing bank accounts, and using brute force to quell a peaceful protest, again to have the Courts find he overstepped his authority. No one should be surprised business doesn’t want to invest in Canada when the country is led by a self-centered narcissist whose mercurial policies are inimical to business success.

Trudeau’s rise to power was no more than his capitalizing on the brand his father made famous - the Trudeau name - but in his case the apple fell a long way from the tree and he tried to emulate his father’s disdain for Western Canada with a lot of success, causing Albertans to seriously consider separation from Canada which would be an economic disaster for Canada. He has made the aphysical and nonsensical claim that CO2 emissions cause climate change (an impossibility) the centrepoint of his Liberal policy platform and with control of the CBC and outright suppression of opposing voices has used propaganda to persuade many Canadians this inane fear has substance which has redirected capital to non-productive uses like “carbon capture” and “decarbonization” projects which add nothing to Canadian productivity, fuel inflation and are an unnecessary distraction for business leaders now wasting time and resources reporting on “emission levels” when CO2 emissions are not only harmless but dangerously low in atmosphere, a threat to plant life.

It is time to get rid of Trudeau. Think about that next election.