Economic illiteracy now runs rampant in the federal government.
A short while ago, I wrote about how Jagmeet Singh is counting on widespread economic illiteracy to push his agenda:
“In times of crisis people like to look for an easy scapegoat, and since Jagmeet Singh is an advocate of big-government, he has a political imperative to make sure that the scapegoat is the private sector, rather than acknowledging how government policies have made things much worse.
If Singh’s ideas were actually implemented, the result would be the exact opposite of what he claims to seek, as prices would rise even higher.”
And now, with the NDP forming a de facto coalition with the Liberals, economic illiteracy is the driving force of federal economic policy.
This will be devastating for Canada’s economy.
Here are 5 reasons why:
More debt, more money printing
A growing number of Canadians are now making the connection between government overspending, excessive central bank money printing, and the rising cost-of-living.
More money chasing fewer goods leads to higher prices.
A key reason for this growing awareness has been the efforts of Pierre Poilievre to repeatedly make the case that government spending and higher prices are linked, and by the influence of independent media helping to counter the economic narrative of the Liberal government.
Unfortunately, the Liberal-NDP coalition is set to double-down on the same policies that have made life so expensive.
They will be further opening the floodgates of federal spending, drowning our nation in debt. The Bank of Canada will face massive political pressure from the Liberal-NDP coalition to enable all this spending by printing more and more money. Unless the Bank of Canada finds a new reserve of courage that has otherwise been absent, that pressure will lead to a monetary policy that further pushes up inflation and robs millions of Canadians of their financial dreams.
Higher taxes
With the NDP propping up the Liberals, the Liberals are now free to keep on raising the carbon tax year after year. In effect, the government is deliberately making the cost-of-living higher and higher, making it tougher for Canadians to make ends meet.
The carbon tax will increase on April 1st, and the Liberal-NDP coalition have fully embraced future increases.
But that’s not all.
Given the amount of spending the Liberal-NDP coalition will be pushing, further tax hikes are just around the corner.
Since both Trudeau and Singh are never willing to look at reducing government spending, they will come for your wallet and hike your taxes to pay for their schemes.
Destroying confidence
Canada benefits heavily from having the United States as our neighbour. But those benefits also present a challenge, since we have to provide a competitive environment for investment.
That would be no problem for a pro-growth, pro-business government.
But with the Liberals and NDP taking an anti-business approach, more and more investment will head towards the United States.
The US has a similar culture, most of the country uses the same main language as Canada, and many of the companies are the same on both sides of the border. Given those realities, it is easy for investment to shift from Canada to the US, and with the Liberal-NDP coalition showing a hostility to businesses and creating a higher-cost environment, the lure of the US market and lower taxes will draw many away from this country.
The Liberal-NDP coalition is also using rhetoric like ‘scabs’ and ‘pandemic-profiteer’ legislation.
That kind of wording will further weaken confidence, and reinforce the anti-business stance of the Socialist Coalition.
As you surely know, it also demonstrates the economic illiteracy of the Liberal-NDP coalition, since accusing companies of ‘pandemic profiteering’ requires a complete disregard for supply and demand.
Depriving our Allies
In his remarks to the European Parliament, Justin Trudeau said all the usual nice words. Those kinds of speeches aren’t difficult to write or deliver, especially if the goal is to not really say anything at all.
Trudeau claimed Canada stands 100% with our allies, and that’s a nice sentiment.
Unfortunately, he left out the fact that when it comes to what our allies actually need, Canada has been doing little-to-nothing.
Consider what Europe needs most right now:
Military reinforcement and oil & gas from a fellow democracy.
Canada could provide both.
While we have some small deployments in Europe, years of underfunding our armed forces have left us unable to provide large-scale assistance. Think of what we could do if we had been investing in advanced jets like the F-35 and building hypersonic missiles.
When it came to providing support to Ukraine, our country quickly ran out of equipment – something admitted by our own defense minister – and what we did send was subpar compared to our allies like the United States & the UK.
Trudeau could have shown real support to Europe by announcing a Canadian military build-up.
Instead, he gave empty platitudes.
And on the issue of oil & gas, Canada is perfectly positioned to help Europe escape their dependence on Russian energy supplies.
It would be a massive win-win.
Expanded Canadian energy production and sales to Europe would make Canada richer, would deprive Putin’s war machine of funds, and would help our democratic allies in Europe.
Trudeau claims “the world has changed,” and he’s absolutely right. However, those are just words, and they must be the precursor to actions that respond to that changed world, and rapid effort to expand our energy sector and increase sales to Europe is exactly the type of action required.
But did Trudeau do that?
Did he announce a huge effort to get more Canadian energy supplies to our European friends?
Of course not.
So, with Europe desperately asking for more energy from democracies, Canada leaves our friends deprived at their moment of greatest need.
This hurts our economy, and the economy of our allies.
Robbing young Canadians
One of the sad ironies of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh’s time in power is that they were elected in large part due to the support of young Canadians, yet are imposing policies that are absolutely devastating to the future prospects of young people in this country.
An entire generation is being largely priced out of the housing market, and immense debt is being piled up, debt that isn’t going into productive investment that drives growth.
In Canada, both household debt and government debt are high, meaning our country isn’t generating the growth necessary to sustain our standard-of-living, and debt is only putting off the inevitable.
Unaffordable homes, unaffordable energy, unaffordable taxes, and unaffordable debt are the ‘legacy’ of the Trudeau-Singh agenda, and the Socialist Coalition will continue pushing Canada in a regressive economic direction.
This is a key reason why Pierre Poilievre has the potential to win over many young Canadians and reshape the political spectrum in this country, because the policies of Trudeau & Singh are crushing the economic prospects of young people.
Whenever the Socialist Coalition is defeated and the Conservatives retake power, the new Prime Minister will have a huge mess to clean up.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
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