This is no time to have a weak, incompetent and highly unpopular government. Pictured: Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Photo Credit: Chrystia Freeland/X.
Canadians can be forgiven for wondering when the Trudeau Liberals are going to face the reality that nothing is going to save their political hides at this stage of the game. The Liberal brain trust seems to continue to believe their problem is really just a matter of improper communications and that we foolish Canadians just don’t get how great they really are. In fact, Canadians appear to be very well aware of the devastating impacts of bad Liberal policies on the economy and their standard of living, as indicated in public opinion polls which have shown for almost two years that a growing majority of Canadians want an election to turf this destructive, incompetent and corrupt Liberal government.
You would think the consistent failure of the Liberals’ latest Hail Mary policy attempts should be hitting home by now. Apparently, the Liberals were convinced that the increase in capital gains taxes included in the most recent federal budget in April 2024 – erroneously promoted as a tax on the “ultra rich” – was going to be a vote winner. They couldn’t have received very good advice, however, as tax experts and sensible Canadians realized this tax change would affect many average citizens and further drive away investment in Canada, something Liberal policies had already discouraged to our disadvantage. Mind you, one consistent characteristic of the Trudeau Liberals is that they don’t listen to experts as they are so sure of their own ideological convictions they don’t require actual expertise.
The most recent Hail Mary pass, the temporary GST/HST suspension, has met a similar fate in the eyes of the general public. It is rumoured that the knowledgeable folks in the Department of Finance strongly opposed this gambit, and for many good reasons. Oddly, many Liberals have promoted this tax change as a break on grocery prices, when most groceries are exempt from GST/HST and always have been. The fact that some items will be temporarily tax-exempt when other similar ones are not is bound to cause all kinds of confusion for retail businesses and consumers. The fact this tax change will take place on Dec. 14 – barely a week before Christmas – just shows how last-minute and ill thought-out this policy was.
Another drawback is that many thousands of small businesses will have to change their point-of-sale equipment for a short two-month period, and risk CRA problems with all the complexities involved in this purely political tax change. The Trudeau government has never been a friend of small business, and this most recent tax change is yet another example of their disdain and disregard for the sector that represents about half of the Canadian economy. In addition, the perversity of having a short-term, relatively meaningless pause in the GST/HST while shortly thereafter imposing yet another hike in the carbon tax on April 1, 2025, has not been lost on anyone.
On top of all of the dumb policy changes undertaken by the Trudeau government in an attempt to improve Liberal electoral fortunes, there is more dismal economic news. Recent GDP data for the third quarter of this year indicate that Canada’s economy continues its sluggish rate of growth. And even that minimal growth was merely a result of a hike in government spending, not any expansion in the productive private sector. Former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz proclaimed last week that Canada was in a recession, noting that Canadian consumers had suffered a 30 per cent increase in the cost of living. The most recent labour force data was also negative, with a jump in the unemployment rate to 6.8 per cent. Canada’s economy continues to perform poorly relative to other Western economies, notably the United States.
Meanwhile, the finances of our nation are in a shambles. Our debt servicing costs exceed the amount of federal government transfers to provinces for health care – over $1 billion every week to merely pay the interest on our national debt. A downgrade of our credit rating can be expected in the near future, further increasing our borrowing costs and our debt service liabilities.
In the wake of all of this bad news, a serious concern is that, in his desperation, Trudeau could prorogue the House of Commons when the legislature resumes at the end of January 2025 after the Christmas break. This would solve nothing but would serve to shut down the many Parliamentary committees that are investigating a number of serious scandals about the Trudeau government’s operations. It would also shut down the government for a period of a month or two to allow Trudeau to further delay the inevitable reckoning of an election or a potential leadership race as his own caucus colleagues become increasingly restless.
If our current circumstances were without challenge or crises, having such a lame duck government might not be a terrible option. However, we are living in very fraught times. The world is on fire in the Middle East, Ukraine and other hot spots. Serious aggression from China and Russia threatens Canada’s north at a time when our military has been underfunded for years by successive governments. Closer to home, our largest trading partner has a new president that intends to be much more disruptive to our most important trading relationship, demands better management of our border and requires more military spending. This is no time to have a weak, incompetent and highly unpopular government that is damaging Canada’s domestic economy as well as our standing abroad.
There is only one solution to Canada’s many pressing problems, and that does not involve yet more Hail Mary policy attempts by the Trudeau government, more bailouts of the Liberals by the increasingly pathetic NDP, or a better Liberal communications strategy. Canadians want, need and deserve a federal election. Now.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
