1 week Ago By Anthony Furey
Canada is tragically a nation in decline. For a number of years, the key economic and quality of life metrics have slowly but surely worsened. This has happened while comparable countries have done much better.
And it’s largely been a policy choice. We are not in accidental decline, but managed decline. This is where we find ourselves, as we are on the cusp of a momentous national election.
The choice voters face on Monday is whether to continue down this path or to turn things around by going in a different direction. The facts are that a vote for the Liberals and Mark Carney is a vote for more of this slow decline and a vote for the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre is a signal that we need to pivot and take seriously the work required to repair the damage caused by Justin Trudeau over the past decade. The people who broke the country are not the people to fix it.
The whole reason that Donald Trump can speak cavalierly about absorbing Canada into the United States is because — in business terms — our country is so mismanaged and underperforming that we have downgraded ourselves into a penny stock that is ripe for a swift hostile takeover. We have underlying assets — our natural resources, our entrepreneurs and what’s left of our manufacturing sector — but we don’t appreciate their value and we undermine their flourishing. This needs to stop if we are to get back in shape and provide a brighter future for younger generations.
The best way to protect our sovereignty is to strengthen our country and grow our economy so we are not as vulnerable to such offensive overtures. This can’t be accomplished by the Liberal philosophy of even greater government control of our economy. The argument that Carney is the preferred choice for prime minister because he’s an economist ignores the fact that this job title does not always denote pro-growth and pro-business.
Karl Marx was an economist. Carney — as he has shown via his track record, his writings and his policies — has a left-leaning view of an economy, one that is more centrally controlled by government and prioritizes the green agenda over sound fundamentals. Carney will make job creators, founders and entrepreneurs less free to build future opportunities.
This will send them packing, which will in turn hollow out our tax base and erode our social services. As iconic Canadian entrepreneur Jim Balsilie has recently written , “Mr. Carney’s economic policy proposals will simply perpetuate the status quo, making Canada more vulnerable, less prosperous and less sovereign.
” Anyone concerned about sovereignty should then also be concerned about Carney. He has been a servant to too many masters and it’s unclear where, if at all, the regular Canadian voter fits in his list of priorities. Carney, who sneers at honest questions from the press, refuses to answer about his global cocktail circuit conflicts.
We still don’t know the extent of his financial holdings. We do not have clarity on his relationships with prominent figures connected to China. And we do not even know when he actually started permanently residing in Canada again.
It could have been mere days before the Liberal leadership race began. Justin Trudeau asked Carney more than once to serve in public office and cabinet. He said no.
Carney was apparently only willing to stay full time in Canada if he could be handed the top job in the land. As reported by the BBC, it was only a few months before Carney was installed as prime minister that he was meeting with former British PM Tony Blair at a high end restaurant in London, England, to plot his entry into politics. If politicians are going to scheme about taking over Canada, could they at least have the decency to do it from within our borders? We have nice restaurants here too.
It is a fact that Carney is the least vetted political leader in recent Canadian history. Carting out Mike Myers and Neil Young and Carney’s hockey jersey gimmicks — these are all meant to compensate for the fact that he’s lacking in Canadian street cred. We know so very little about the man.
Yet when Pierre Poilievre opens up and speaks about the concerns he has for our nation and our children, when he speaks from the heart about his own special needs daughter, we see a man well known to us, his best years ahead of him, deeply committed to building a better future and deeply committed to Canada. It’s going to be a tough slog getting Canada out of the rut it’s now in, regardless of what Trump does or doesn’t do. Poilievre will work like hell to turn it around.
Carney will keep us on the same path of managed decline. Vote wisely Canada. National Post Carson Jerema: Mark Carney is a misinformation machineColby Cosh: Mark Carney and the next lost decade.
