The Liberals’ economic mismanagement of the country has resulted in irreparable damage to Canada’s prosperity. Pictured: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Photo Credit: Justin Trudeau/X.
The year 2025 will mark the final year of a ten-year reign with the Trudeau Liberals governing Canada according to a vast majority of public opinion surveys. It will also mark the final year of Canada’s “Lost Decade.” This is not coincidental. In fact, the Trudeau government will be incessantly associated with the term Lost Decade. The Liberals’ economic mismanagement of the country has resulted in irreparable damage to Canada’s prosperity and Canadians’ economic standing in the world. So, for a great many Canadians, ushering in the new year is notable for what it ends.
Unbridled government spending
Strapping Canadians into a fiscal straight jacket is already a definitive part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s legacy. It is an indelible smudge on the Trudeau government’s record that today’s children will be the first Canadians not to exceed their parents’ standard of living.
It has been a decade of unbridled deficit spending and an alarming accumulation of national debt. The notorious record of the Trudeau Liberals is that they have outborrowed all previous governments in the country’s history since Confederation – combined. Their reckless, habitual overspending has doubled the national debt to more than $1.2 trillion, and this is projected to double again within five years. Canadians today pay more than $1 billion in debt interest charges per week. The onerous debt payments take directly from the government’s ability to support Canadians’ increasing demands for improved health care, housing, and social programs.
Deficit spending and a bloated debt equates to increased taxes for Canadians. The Trudeau Liberals will be remembered for increasing the tax burden of working Canadians, who today pay more in taxes than in the rising costs of housing, food, and clothing combined. Paying almost half of one’s income in taxes (46 per cent as factored by the Fraser Institute) is a significant challenge for the country to attract and retain entrepreneurs, investors, and skilled professionals. Even more serious is the rising taxes on middle-class Canadians, 86 per cent of whom are paying higher personal income taxes today than when the Trudeau government took office in 2015.
The Trudeau Liberals will also be remembered for exacerbating an affordability crisis with its crippling, punitive schedule of carbon tax hikes. Carbon taxes increase the cost of everything in Canada – and it is absurd to think this tax policy has failed to achieve any of the Liberals’ policy objectives. Carbon taxes have resulted in Canadians paying more for their goods and services – and this has undermined Canadians’ economic sustainability. In 2024, a third of Canadians needed to borrow money to cover basic necessities like food and shelter, according to a recent report by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. For younger generations under the age of 44, more than two in five (43 per cent) needed to use their credit card, borrow money, or go into debt in order to eat and pay monthly expenses. Even as we close out the Lost Decade, with the Liberals there is no tax relief; the carbon tax is scheduled to be hiked again in 2025.
Lost opportunities for energy development
The Trudeau Liberals’ energy policies are proving disastrous for the country: from the scandalous $1 billion federal green slush fund that has misappropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to Liberal friendly companies (including grants to a company associated with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault), to the promised $52.5 billion of grants and subsidies awarded to electric vehicle manufacturers and EV supply projects – many of which are now facing delays due to a drop in market demand. Even more damaging than these polices is the Liberals’ obsession with pursing global environmental policies that would have Canada’s oil and gas production closed down.
Through the past decade, demands for oil and gas have dramatically increased around the world, and in the last few years many western European countries have faced energy crises. The Trudeau Liberals have defied the international community’s need for more energy by introducing legislation and regulations expressly designed to throttle back the Canadian oil and gas sector. Where Canadian oil and gas exports may have met the increasing demands, European countries have pressed to secure their energy requirements from elsewhere. The Liberals’ energy record is one of lost opportunities. One of the most egregious disservices to the Canadian economy was the Liberals turning their back on Germany, Japan, Ukraine, Poland, Greece, Latvia, and South Korea, all who in the last two years wished to enter into agreements for Canada’s liquified natural gas (LNG). Trudeau’s dismissive comment to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that there was “no business case” for Canadian LNG exports summarizes his government’s folly when it comes to managing the country’s energy policies.
As much as there is a business case to develop Canadian oil and gas for export to Europe and Asia, there is an even more compelling argument for developing the country’s natural resources to sustain Canadians’ standard of living. The country’s prosperity, today and for years to come, depends on the health of its oil and gas industry. This sector adds $50 billion annually in the form of royalties and taxes to government coffers, and producers are spending more than $30 billion annually in Canada. It is not an exaggeration to state this sector, which is the fifth largest oil and gas producer in the world, fuels Canada’s economy. To kneecap the sector with prejudicial legislation and excessive regulation as the Trudeau Liberals have done through their duration in office is to the detriment of Canadians.
Stunted, sagging economy
The accumulative effect of nine-plus years of the Trudeau government’s lame economic management is a national economy that is stunted, sagging, and has sunk to the bottom of the G7 nations. A recent National Bank report on the country’s economic wellbeing concludes, “Without decisive action, Canada risks becoming irrelevant in the North American and global manufacturing supply chains, along with its ability to drive innovation and sustained economic growth.” The bank reveals that 15 of 18 manufacturing industries in Canada reported negative growth since 2018. There are multiple factors identified for the country’s decline, including “structural economic shifts, insufficient investment, inadequate policy support, and pressures—both competitive and uncompetitive—from global markets.”
Released just before Christmas, this bank report is just the latest assessment of Canada’s failing economy. It compares Canada – U.S. trends: “the U.S. manufacturing sector has grown by 10 per cent in real terms since 2018… In stark contrast, Canada’s manufacturing sector has shrunk by 5 per cent over the same period — a concerning indicator of economic erosion.” The downward trajectory of Canada’s fortunes has not gone unnoticed in the U.S. where a recent Wall Street Journal editorial has suggested the G7 members should consider replacing Canada with a country that has a more solid economic foundation and the ability to contribute to the G7’s international initiatives, particularly its NATO commitments.
Canada’s Lost Decade and the Trudeau government’s economic record is measured most accurately with the comparison of the Canadian and American real GDP per capita data, which indicate the pace of growth of the respective economies. Through the last 10 years there has been a growing productivity gap between the countries’ workforces and, in 2024, it is estimated that this gap will widen to nearly 50 per cent. With Statistics Canada’s release of economic data in early December, National Bank Financial spokesman observed, “The Canada-U.S. productivity differential has become outright obscene.” Data reveals that Canada’s most productive provinces are now comparable to the economic performance of the least productive States in the U.S. Most Canadian jurisdictions are worse off than Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia. Should the country continue on this trendline, Canadians can expect economic prospects to worsen, a continued drop in living standards in a country that is less dynamic and prosperous.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has also passed judgement on the Trudeau Liberals’ negative impact on the country’s prosperity. The OECD forecasts Canada will be the worst-performing advanced economy through the 2020s (ranking 38th of the 38 developed member-countries) and the country will be in steady decline for the following three decades, through 2060.
It is rather bleak for Canadians. So, here is a promising parting thought…. Some current political commentary suggests that Canadians can turn the page on the Lost Decade with the resignation of PM Trudeau, however it is more realistic to presume that it will take the defeat of the Liberal government in the impending election to change the country’s economic prospects. Consider that all MPs in the Liberal caucus (and the NDP caucus) voted for and defended consecutive budget deficits, destructive oil and gas policies, scandalous green energy initiatives, and continuous hikes to the carbon tax. But it is now 2025. Canadians can welcome the new year and the finality it holds.
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
