Liberal (Minority/Majority) Government 2025 - ???

[Brad Sallows]

But that doesn't fit the narrative of "CANADA IS FAILING!" so nobody uses it.

Very few single measures do. Put them all together, though, and a trend is obvious. Not failing, but faltering.

The US is in a breakaway by itself, and Canada is still part of the chase group. It's unlikely that we can join the breakaway, but we could certainly fall out of the chase group if we misallocate too much capital and don't strive to match growth and productivity improvement rates with the US.

Canada is stuck with being in competition with the US. Most of our population is within a short drive of the border. Same language, mostly same general culture. Very easy for people with prospects to improve them by migrating from here to there. Telling ourselves we're healthier and more compassionate isn't proof against falling so far behind the US in the next 50 years that the quality-of-life gap looks like the one between us and the good parts of most South American countries right now.

 

[Altair]

Very few single measures do. Put them all together, though, and a trend is obvious. Not failing, but faltering.

The US is in a breakaway by itself, and Canada is still part of the chase group. It's unlikely that we can join the breakaway, but we could certainly fall out of the chase group if we misallocate too much capital and don't strive to match growth and productivity improvement rates with the US.

Canada is stuck with being in competition with the US. Most of our population is within a short drive of the border. Same language, mostly same general culture. Very easy for people with prospects to improve them by migrating from here to there. Telling ourselves we're healthier and more compassionate isn't proof against falling so far behind the US in the next 50 years that the quality-of-life gap looks like the one between us and the good parts of most South American countries right now.

If people would stop comparing us to the USA we would be fine.

The americans have debt fulled GDP growth, with way more wealth inequality, never mind medical and student debt problems.

Can they afford their deficits because of reserve currency status and having the largest capital markets on the planet that suck up untold trillions in investments and liquidity? Yes. Can Canada do that? No.

So why do we compare our economic prospects to that of the USA? We look to Europe or wealthy Asia and we are right there in the middle of the pack. Not great, not terrible.

Sure the GDP per capita stat looked ugly, but that wasn't anything to do with the economy, it was because we were growing at the rate of a African nation without access to birth control. And GDP per capita sucks as a stat, because Ireland only looks so good because American multinationals declare their income there. The average Irish individual didn't make a penny more because of that surge in GDP per capita.

But to low information voters, this all looks damning. And politicians, but especially PP, peddle in this because the long answer that actually contains the nuance is complicated and takes critical thinking.

Truth of the matter is, Canada is on par with its peers, our underlying metrics are not great, not terrible, and while we can always do better, Canada is by no means failing.

 

[Brad Sallows]

So why do we compare our economic prospects to that of the USA?

Because Canada has a serious problem with people with high potential emigrating to the US.

Right now BC is working to attract health workers from the US. It's a fact that health workers in the US (as with most workers in the US) have higher incomes and can consume at higher levels. For now, BC reaps the benefit of people who are mostly just dissatisfied with Trump. They obviously haven't been watching the BCNU ads about the hard life of nurses here, or the news spots about the high stresses of being almost anyone in a hospital. A few years from now Trump will be gone, they'll have experienced the fact that Canadian facilities are not stress-free, and they'll be thinking about their incomes and taxes.

Another interesting phenomenon: income taxes are generally falling in "red" (Republican-controlled) states and rising in "blue" (Democrat-controlled) states. Article here. "In 2006, 15 states had top individual income-tax rates below 5%, and only one exceeded 10%, according to the report’s historical data. Today, more than half of states have top rates below 5%, while several states and the District of Columbia have rates above 10%." No need to guess which party dominates the under-5 group, and which dominates the over-10 group.

[Add: Florida has no income tax, and is working on lowering sales tax, for those who can handle a climate without snow and a topography without mountains. DeSantis has mused about getting sales tax down to zero, but that would be a ways off.]

 

[Jarnhamar]

Suggesting our economic underperformance relative to peers is just political spin ignores what institutions like the Bank of Canada and OECD have been warning about for years.

 

[MilEME09]

Suggesting our economic underperformance relative to peers is just political spin ignores what institutions like the Bank of Canada and OECD have been warning about for years.

True but the biggest reason for the sharp decline wasnt over all economic performance but an immigration system that was heavily exploited for loop holes. Many hate on the TFW program for example, but i find all the hate is directed at the government for having the program, no one seems to be stopping to ask why businesses are using it so much.

Instead of debating symptoms of the problem and trying to take a perverbial Tylenol for the economy to make the problem go away, we need to get to the root causes and solve it that way.

 

[YZT580]

True but the biggest reason for the sharp decline wasnt over all economic performance but an immigration system that was heavily exploited for loop holes. Many hate on the TFW program for example, but i find all the hate is directed at the government for having the program, no one seems to be stopping to ask why businesses are using it so much.

Instead of debating symptoms of the problem and trying to take a perverbial Tylenol for the economy to make the problem go away, we need to get to the root causes and solve it that way.

how be you all forget about all your GDPs and so forth and look at employment. Whilst our population may have shrunk there is one figure that is up: unemployment. There is a loss of 18000 jobs, youth unemployment is up, core population unemployment is up. That means all those people have no income which translates to food banks and more people on the streets. That is the reality of our economy.