The bane of any business community is uncertainty, and Canadian businesses have a great deal of uncertainty to deal with these days. Some of the uncertainty is unavoidable as we have no control over such things as global disputes in the Middle East and Ukraine, which nevertheless affect us greatly. There are other sources of uncertainty which we could control within Canada to a greater degree, but our governments are mostly refusing to do so. Some examples include harmful government policies which are not removed despite the knowledge they are damaging Canadian businesses and the economy and the lack of progress on the vital Canada-U.S. trade agreement, among others.
Another great source of uncertainty involves the dishonest statements from our politicians, who claim to be pursuing one objective or another but often do exactly the opposite. Virtually all governments stretch the truth, but the current bald-faced, constant lying by our federal Liberal government, as well as some of the provinces, has reached a record level. When Prime Minister Mark Carney was first elected, many business owners believed that he represented a very welcome change from the incompetent former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who presided over an epic deterioration in Canada’s economy, society and government effectiveness in a relatively short period of time. However, due to the constant mendacity of Carney and his Liberal colleagues, the bloom is very much coming off the Carney rose and further creating uncertainty among business decision makers.
The latest quarterly magazine of The Fraser Institute is focussed on this issue. The magazine is entitled “Carney Government Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Reality.” That’s an understatement! The magazine cites many key areas in which the federal government has claimed one thing and delivered absolutely nothing. Some of the areas highlighted by the Fraser study include fiscal policy, where Carney promised a big change from his predecessor yet has actually been even worse than Trudeau.
Other mendacities include the repeated Carney statement that he will be creating “the strongest economy in the G7.” Currently Canada is the only economy in the G7 that is experiencing a recession, so it seems that boast didn’t pan out too well. Carney also loves to talk about how his government will “build, build, build, at speeds not seen in generations.” Yet one thing that would be required to fulfill that promise would be investment growth – both foreign and domestic. Factual data show Canada’s investment climate has not improved at all under Carney.
Housing investment is another regular area for Carney’s dishonesty. Carney’s original announcement for housing development took place in front of a phoney “Potemkin Village” façade which had been built exclusively for the press conference and was dismantled later that day. It seems Carney’s promises on housing development were just as phoney as his fake buildings. In fact, housing starts in the next few years are forecast to be even lower than in the past, with the government’s promise of 100,000 housing starts annually merely a fever dream of Liberals with zero chance of happening.
The Canada-U.S. trade deal is another letdown. Carney initially said he would have a deal by July 2025. Then, as his government and some provincial premiers such as Ontario’s Doug Ford continued to take pot shots at the U.S. and rag the puck on negotiations, we still have nothing even close to a deal today. Yes, Trump is erratic and difficult to deal with, yet other countries such as Mexico seem to have achieved a great deal more in dealing with the U.S. than Canada by taking a more pragmatic, less sensationalist approach. No Canadian should delude themselves that achieving a good trade deal with the US is optional for Canada. Our past trade deals have been highly beneficial for our economy, and achieving a deal soon should be job one for any Canadian government.
Some of the real howlers are those most of us have seen on the evening news. Carney standing up in the House of Commons and claiming that affordability in Canada was the best it has been in a decade was a classic. Hard to believe even Liberal voters bought that one. Then there was the whopper about Canada having the best fiscal position in the G7, when in reality Canada was in fifth place once an apples-to-apples comparison was used. The list goes on and would be comical if it weren’t so very negative for Canadians.
The biggest lie of all is likely the impression the Carney government likes to promote that he is overseeing Canada’s “new” Liberal government, in an attempt to distance these Liberals from the abject failure of the Trudeau years. That belief was always a stretch, considering that many Liberal MPs and Cabinet Ministers are the same as were in the Trudeau administration.
Now that we have had a year plus of these “new” Liberals, they don’t look much different from the old ones. Carney has left in place virtually all of the Trudeau legislation that damaged our economy so badly and doesn’t seem inclined to change that in future. Despite Carney’s pretentions of being fiscally prudent, he has actually outspent the reckless Trudeau, digging an even bigger debt hole. As Carney continues to state how excessively large the federal bureaucracy became under Trudeau, he creates a new federal entity of one sort or another every couple of weeks.
Recently, more business leaders have begun to speak out against the Carney government’s policies. Although many of them did have initial hope for change, the evidence is suggesting that was ill-founded. Perhaps it really will take even more job loss, business failure and terrible economic facts to convince Canadians who still are supporting the Liberals that they’ve made a grave error. Let’s all hope it doesn’t take too long.
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.
