Canadians’ standard of living is on decline, report says

[DKG]

For decades, there has been a steady regression of the view of Canada from austere to indulgent. It is apparent that this regression correlates with the decline of the domestic industry in Canada. We used to have massive auto manufacturing, robust logging, and a revered oil sector, but in time, it seems that our homegrown industries have lost their lustre, along with the sense of purpose they once instilled in the people who worked within them.

Out of the G7 countries, Canada now finds itself among the weakest in manufacturing capacity, and since the turn of the twenty-first century, we have seen a consistent atrophy of our domestic productive ability. Increasingly, what was once Canadian industrial output is being shipped overseas, both in its production and its profit.

[Brent]

Our immigration is designed to destroy the working class and therefore the whole country.

[Herman]

[Herman]

The Liberals love showing Canadians aggregate GDP numbers because it hides the real problem.
Yes, Canada's total economy grew. So did the population.

But when you adjust for population growth and look at GDP per capita, Canada ranks near the bottom of the G7 according to Fraser Institute analysis of IMF data.

That means the average Canadian is falling behind even while politicians celebrate headline growth numbers.

[DKG]

Mark Carney is performative not subatantive. He ran on specific economic promises that he hasn't even tried to fulfill. And the economic reforms this country needed yesterday he will not touch. But, his followers think he is a competent manager.

The easy fixes Carney isn't doing
If his whole plan to boost the economy, there are many levers he hasn't pulled

One year into the tenure of Prime Minister Mark Carney, it would be fair to say that his government is already flagging on its management of the economy, arguably the singular issue for why it was elected.

Unemployment is up. Deficits are high. Manufacturing is down. And the trade war with the United States – which Carney had once pledged to wrap up by last June – is now lurching into stalemate as U.S. negotiators pledge to take a hard line on renegotiations of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

Carney's economic strategy has focused heavily on offices and documents pledging to reverse all of these trends. A memorandum of understanding to build a pipeline to the Pacific. A Major Projects Office promising to "unlock Canada's economic potential." And nearly a dozen non-committal trade "deals" with non-U.S. countries.

But all the while, his government is neglecting some of the country's most obvious economic fixes — fixes that are often cited by economists and business leaders as to why Canada's fiscal decline persists.

Below, a cursory guide to some of the easier economic levers that are going unpulled by Ottawa. 

Repealing the industrial carbon tax

As Carney demonstrated after his swearing in, repealing taxes is extremely easy for a prime minister to do. All he had to do was order the carbon tax to be zeroed, and gas prices across the country dropped almost immediately.

As such, it would take about the same amount of effort to repeal Canada's other, less well-known, carbon tax: The industrial carbon tax.

Although it isn't itemized in the same way as the consumer carbon tax, a March report by the Fraser Institute estimated that it will slow down the economy just enough to equal $1,730 in lost income per employed Canadian by 2030.

The Conservatives have put the industrial carbon tax at the centre of their messaging against the Carney government, although the campaign has never managed to seize the public's imagination to the same extent as their crusade against the consumer carbon tax.

But businesses are indeed citing it as something that is scaring away investment.

Just this week, Cenovus Energy CEO Jon McKenzie told a conference outside Montreal that no other oil-producing nation maintains a similar tax, so rather than its intended purpose of incentivizing decarbonization, it "incents industry to invest outside of Canada."

"We have created a set of national policies and regulations that make resource development and investment in Canada uncompetitive with the rest of the world," he said.

Repealing the tanker ban

Right now, it is illegal to sail an oil tanker into the one stretch of Canadian coastline where it would be most profitable to establish an oil export port.

Under the 2019 Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, export tankers are forbidden from entering any of the waters between the Northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaska border.

That's the closest stretch of coastline to the oil sands, and it's been earmarked as a pipeline terminus before. The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, cancelled in 2016, had been planned to end in Kitimat, B.C.

If Northern Gateway had been built on schedule, it would currently be exporting 525,000 barrels of oil per day. Which, at today's elevated oil prices, is about $44 million worth.

All the while, the tanker ban has very specifically been cited as the reason no other company has stepped up to build a pipeline to the Northwest Coast.

"The previous government's tanker ban effectively makes that export pipeline illegal. No company would build a pipeline to nowhere," Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel told a meeting of the Empire Club of Canada last October.

He added, "the tanker ban is a great example of how things will have to change to allow our country to maximize its economic potential."

And the Carney government could feasibly scrap the provisions of the tanker ban within a matter of days.

In fact, it would be rescinded just as easily as the Digital Services Tax, which Carney suddenly axed last June amid trade negotiations with the U.S.

All he had to do was instruct the Department of Finance to issue a statement saying that they wouldn't be enforcing the terms of the Digital Services Tax Act, and would repeal it in full at the next session of Parliament.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/easy-fixes-carney-isnt-doing

[Brent]

Mark Carney is performative not subatantive. He ran on specific economic promises that he hasn't even tried to fulfill. And the economic reforms this country needed yesterday he will not touch. But, his followers think he is a competent manager.

The easy fixes Carney isn't doing
If his whole plan to boost the economy, there are many levers he hasn't pulled

One year into the tenure of Prime Minister Mark Carney, it would be fair to say that his government is already flagging on its management of the economy, arguably the singular issue for why it was elected.

Unemployment is up. Deficits are high. Manufacturing is down. And the trade war with the United States – which Carney had once pledged to wrap up by last June – is now lurching into stalemate as U.S. negotiators pledge to take a hard line on renegotiations of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

Carney's economic strategy has focused heavily on offices and documents pledging to reverse all of these trends. A memorandum of understanding to build a pipeline to the Pacific. A Major Projects Office promising to "unlock Canada's economic potential." And nearly a dozen non-committal trade "deals" with non-U.S. countries.

But all the while, his government is neglecting some of the country's most obvious economic fixes — fixes that are often cited by economists and business leaders as to why Canada's fiscal decline persists.

Below, a cursory guide to some of the easier economic levers that are going unpulled by Ottawa. 

Repealing the industrial carbon tax

As Carney demonstrated after his swearing in, repealing taxes is extremely easy for a prime minister to do. All he had to do was order the carbon tax to be zeroed, and gas prices across the country dropped almost immediately.

As such, it would take about the same amount of effort to repeal Canada's other, less well-known, carbon tax: The industrial carbon tax.

Although it isn't itemized in the same way as the consumer carbon tax, a March report by the Fraser Institute estimated that it will slow down the economy just enough to equal $1,730 in lost income per employed Canadian by 2030.

The Conservatives have put the industrial carbon tax at the centre of their messaging against the Carney government, although the campaign has never managed to seize the public's imagination to the same extent as their crusade against the consumer carbon tax.

But businesses are indeed citing it as something that is scaring away investment.

Just this week, Cenovus Energy CEO Jon McKenzie told a conference outside Montreal that no other oil-producing nation maintains a similar tax, so rather than its intended purpose of incentivizing decarbonization, it "incents industry to invest outside of Canada."

"We have created a set of national policies and regulations that make resource development and investment in Canada uncompetitive with the rest of the world," he said.

Repealing the tanker ban

Right now, it is illegal to sail an oil tanker into the one stretch of Canadian coastline where it would be most profitable to establish an oil export port.

Under the 2019 Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, export tankers are forbidden from entering any of the waters between the Northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaska border.

That's the closest stretch of coastline to the oil sands, and it's been earmarked as a pipeline terminus before. The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, cancelled in 2016, had been planned to end in Kitimat, B.C.

If Northern Gateway had been built on schedule, it would currently be exporting 525,000 barrels of oil per day. Which, at today's elevated oil prices, is about $44 million worth.

All the while, the tanker ban has very specifically been cited as the reason no other company has stepped up to build a pipeline to the Northwest Coast.

"The previous government's tanker ban effectively makes that export pipeline illegal. No company would build a pipeline to nowhere," Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel told a meeting of the Empire Club of Canada last October.

He added, "the tanker ban is a great example of how things will have to change to allow our country to maximize its economic potential."

And the Carney government could feasibly scrap the provisions of the tanker ban within a matter of days.

In fact, it would be rescinded just as easily as the Digital Services Tax, which Carney suddenly axed last June amid trade negotiations with the U.S.

All he had to do was instruct the Department of Finance to issue a statement saying that they wouldn't be enforcing the terms of the Digital Services Tax Act, and would repeal it in full at the next session of Parliament.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/easy-fixes-carney-isnt-doing

Unsustainable mass immigration. That is why we cannot have nice things in Canada.