Five Things Wrong with Canada (That Don’t Involve Politicians.)
A lament - voting can’t bring us back from this. Introduction. A five part series - First part, "It's those squeaky wheels" released in three days,
If you think all is well in Canada, please skip this essay. However, the consensus of experts, as well as those in food lines, those struggling to pay a mortgage or those who see a mortgage as a distant dream, all disagree, so the view from your cottage might not be accurate.
When you have an economy where our projected growth is the worst in the OECD and our per capita GDP is declining, you can safely say that all is not well.
But take heart. We are not the only ones declining—Egypt is facing a significant decline of 6.2%, Ethiopia has a slight contraction of 0.1%, Gabon is at --0.5 %, and Iceland is seeing a drop of 2.7%. Additionally, countries like Haiti (-0.3%), Guinea (-1.5%), and Liberia (-0.4%) are also experiencing negative growth in per capita GDP. Canada is at -0.4%.
But our problems go beyond politicians.
Let me get politicians out of the way first. They do matter, but often, the truth and the root of the problems is the culture that thinks it prudent to elect them.
Trudeau was a poor choice. He was a callow, inexperienced leader elected based on his family name, looks, and charisma. He has always focused on optics, prioritising how actions or legislation would impact polls rather than determining how to best implement these schemes.
Trudeau realised that with a disengaged electorate, perception is what matters most, and as long as the economy was doing modestly well, he’d likely stay in office.
Federal and provincial political politicians learned the power of fear during the pandemic. They found it safer to restrict rights than to risk reopening too soon and be blamed for COVID-19 deaths. The media would roar over a single COVID death, insisting stricter lockdowns were necessary while ignoring the consequences: we ignore the people who died because they were denied essential medical care in the name of “COVID safety.”
The purpose of life is not to avoid death, and nobody cares about the decline in quality of life. As the single mum in her tiny apartment went stir-crazy, our elite decision-makers rolled in from their cottage to their five-bedroom house and drank a mojito on their deck. Their job revolved around their laptop, and all was well for them, so they locked everyone up.
Life should examined by looking at WELLBYs, the measure of years well lived. It’s cold, but the 91-year-old who has four chronic diseases and passes is not the same as the 35-year-old father of two. And we somehow forgot there were other diseases.
My father was one of the victims of this government-media COVID-19 fetish. In the summer of 2021, while we were forced (or people felt forced) to meet cousins 15 feet apart on our Alberta farm to “protect” babies (who statistically faced almost no risk), my father was being devoured by lymphoma. Good luck getting a checkup at that point.
Preventative care was thrown out the window. Our prime minister was less than Churchill, who stood in bomb craters. Premier Ford almost cried as he trembled behind a microphone and asked police to randomly pull over cars to see if the occupants were in the same household.
Reactive medicine is much more lucrative for the medical establishment.
As they carried my beloved father’s body out the back end of the hospital some seven months later, after the crazy 15 feet, masked, outside, with relatives whose brains were filled with fear and irrational concerns, the focus on the front end of my dad’s hospital was still putting little blue masks on everyone and telling people - because some mindless bureaucrat said - so that they were not allowed to be there and to not allowed to hold their father’s hand as he took his last breath.
Modern studies tell us that, over the long term, the lockdowns cost us more than they saved us. Read that again.1
But Trudeau milked another plurality out of COVID stagnation. Giving out $4 for every $1 lost in labour was a windfall for many.2 I knew an international student who earned $490 a month before COVID-19 and was given $2,000 monthly as a replacement income. She did nothing wrong—that was the rule. Quite the top-up!
The economy, though resilient, can only withstand so much bad management. We’ve had finance ministers who seemed more focused on optics than clarity, starting sentences with “Let me be clear” and proceeding to offer anything but clarity.
Land acknowledgements are thought a step forward; they essentially say that we know this used to be aboriginal land. Well, it’s not anymore, but thanks, we respectfully take your land and tell you to screw yourself. Maybe you will get clean drinking water before 2050, but we love you!
It embraces victimhood and does nothing.
And every PM has a shelf life, and Trudeau’s has expired. Canada’s per capita GDP is declining (we’re as rich as Alabama now), and by 2050, we’ll earn 50% less than the average American - unless things change. Even the dullest of us are noticing the housing prices, inflation, 8-hour ER wait times, and an internationally embarrassing military healthcare system that even our irrational pride for is crumbling; it is like your uncle who now can’t tell you what 8 X 7 but brags about winning the math context in 1958 - Canada comes in 10th place /11 in medical usefulness.
Such failures only get edged out in disgrace by Trudeau’s dancing, singing, and showing off his socks in front of world audiences.
People want Freeland as the next PM; she cuts her toenails in parliament and looks like she has taken active listening to new highs, coming across as some annoying school mum who's been hitting her son’s Adderall a little hard. Trudeau excels only at finding the most expensive hotel rooms abroad and breaking spending records on snacks during trips.
Yes, some of these negatives are provincial, but leadership ultimately bears responsibility. Trudeau’s attempts to hide his collusion with the Chinese didn’t help.
But are leaders solely to blame, or does the fault lie with the electorate? Complaining about a leader in a democracy is like complaining about ugly clothes at H&M. If people didn’t want it, it wouldn’t be on the shelves.
This essay will focus on the reflection of ourselves in the leaders we elect. Right now, we have a government ruling like it has a majority with the support of only one in four voters (likely civil servants and pensioners voting to protect their entitlement to their entitlements).
Canada is now 19th in the world in per capita income, and we’ve been steadily declining, especially under Trudeau. Thirty years ago, we ranked 9th.
With our natural wealth and potential, we could be the richest country in the world.
Instead, we’ve fallen to 19th. We are the only country ranked in the top six in mining, oil, gas and agriculture. We have oceans on two borders, the Arctic up top and the Americans on the Southern border. God has been good to us, but we should do much for those given much and be in the top five.
However, we are 19th and going downhill. And no leader will pull us out; our culture is becoming more dimwitted and shallow; we can’t separate optics from execution; we allow leaders a free pass, allowing an elderly neighbour to investigate a serious charge of Chinese collusion into our elections? And then sort of forgetting about it? That’s the Canadian way; the Sopers are coming over for the BBQ tonight; what’s on Tiktok?
No, I never heard about this Chinese interference. Nobody reads a newspaper in this house—big laugh—we just look at Google News as we head to work.
It’s not just about poor leadership, an ineffective bureaucracy, or wasteful spending.
Canada is like the C- student who’s told every report card: “If you applied yourself, you could do much better.” But the problem is cultural—we expect mediocrity from ourselves and our leaders.
The OECD projects we’ll drop to 12th soon on healthcare, and the trend shows we’re likely to keep falling. Countries don’t live or die solely by their leaders. Leaders reflect national culture, and nations succeed or fail based on their structures and institutions.
My family left Ireland for Canada in 1904, seeking better opportunities. But now, Ireland—thanks to its low taxes and efficient government—is usually ranked number one.
Maybe it’s time we all head back.
The food’s better, the people are nicer, and the beer is superior.
We can’t give up on Canada. We have come too far.
Covid Lockdown Cost/Benefits: A Critical Assessment of the Literature Douglas W. Allen∗ April 2021
ABSTRACT An examination of over 80 COVID-19 studies reveals that many relied on false assumptions that tended to overestimate the lockdown's benefits and costs. As a result, most early cost/benefit studies arrived at conclusions refuted later by data, rendering their cost/benefit findings incorrect. Over the past six months, research has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid-19 deaths. Generally speaking, the ineffectiveness of lockdown stems from voluntary changes in behaviour. Lockdown jurisdictions could not prevent noncompliance, and non-lockdown jurisdictions benefited from voluntary changes in behaviour that mimicked lockdowns. The limited effectiveness of lockdowns explains why, after one year, the unconditional cumulative deaths per million and the pattern of daily deaths per million are not negatively correlated with the stringency of lockdowns across countries. Using a cost/benefit method proposed by Professor Bryan Caplan and using two extreme assumptions of lockdown effectiveness, the cost/benefit ratio of lockdowns in Canada, in terms of life-years saved, is between 3.6–and 282. That is, lockdown may go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history.
https://financesofthenation.ca/2020/12/08/overcompensation-of-income-losses-a-major-flaw-in-canadas-pandemic-response