From the union halls in Sault Ste. Marie to the docks at the Port of Vancouver, and in households across the country, there is no trace of Christmas cheer. For many Canadians, this year’s yuletide will be the bleakest holiday season in 45 years, perhaps since the great depression years.
Steel manufacturer Algoma Steel rocked the northern Ontario city of Sault Ste. Marie this week with the announcement that it is laying off 1,050 workers – a third of its workforce – and shutting down its blast furnace and coke oven operations. The company reported losing a half a billion dollars in the last quarter as a result of U.S. tariffs, which have shut it out of the American market. Days before the federal election in late April, Prime Minister Mark Carney made a campaign stop on the floor of Algoma Steel to guarantee Canadian steel workers’ jobs, and the Liberal government gave the company $400 million this year knowing that there was an impending layoff announcement planned.
A similar corporate welfare scandal rages on in the House of Commons, attempting to hold industry minister Mélanie Joly to account for the $15 billion dollars paid to electric vehicle manufacturer Stellantis. The car company announced in September that it is relocating its Jeep Compass production from Brampton, Ontario to Illinois, which will result in the loss of approximately 3,000 Canadian jobs. It has been revealed that the government paid billions to Stellantis without the company guaranteeing jobs, and then the government had the contract details redacted so MPs could not review it and, on top of this, the hapless minister admitted to not reading the contract. Joly now tells Conservative MPs that the Stellantis fiasco was Stephen Harper’s fault and that they “should stop just whining and get on board.” Joly’s responses in Ottawa are especially insulting given the Stellantis president announced in Washington D.C. this week a $15-billion investment in the U.S. that will create 5,000 American jobs.
Another grim announcement was made in western Canada when Canadian potash mining giant Nutrien made public the decision to export its Saskatchewan potash and fertilizer through an U.S. port, just south of the B.C. border in Longview, Washington. Nutrien is bypassing the Port of Vancouver to build a $1 billion export terminal in Longview. The company cited lower rail costs, reduced construction expenses, and a more favorable regulatory environment as the factors in rejecting a Canadian business solution. The Carney government is now making promises to Nutrien that it will make significant infrastructure investments at the Port of Vancouver. However, the Canadian company has indicated that spending a billion dollars of its own money in an American facility is still the more attractive option.
This is another setback for the Carney Liberals who have been floundering this year with “picking winners” for their “bold and ambitious plan” to kickstart the country’s sagging economy. Carney recently announced six major government investments in his second tranche of nation-building projects. Two (perhaps three) of the six are dead on arrival. 1) The North Coast Transmission line through northern B.C. that is expected to power the Ksi Lisims LNG terminal in Kitimat has been rejected by indigenous leaders in the region, “This is our territory, we did not cede the territory to government.” 2) The LNG terminal itself has been revealed to be an American company that will be constructing the floating LNG facility in Korea with Chinese steel. 3) The Liberals’ major project in New Brunswick, Northcliff Resources’ Sisson Mine, is failing to meet 40 provincial environmental conditions on the project – and local indigenous leaders have been vocally speaking out against the mine development.
The Ottawa – Alberta memorandum of understanding (MOU), recently feted by Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, is yet another example of Canada’s insufferable political circus act. At the centre of the MOU is the agreement for the Carney Liberals to help facilitate the fast tracking of a private sector constructed pipeline to the Pacific coast. The ink was not even dry on the MOU when it was opposed by B.C. Premier David Eby as an “energy vampire” and by the Coastal First Nations who stated they would use “every tool in our tool box to ensure that this pipeline does not go ahead.” Then minister Steven Guilbeault resigned from cabinet, the environmental zealots in the Liberal caucus cried foul, and Carney hurriedly reassured First Nations Chiefs this week that all major projects in Canada will have indigenous partnership.
Verily, the promise of Canadian jobs in major resource development projects appears to be a non-starter within the nation’s current political environment. After a decade of anti-resource development policy in Ottawa, what was once the country’s industrial advantages are now an impossibility. Despairingly, in 2025, there are no sugar-plum ferries in sight; Carney is proving to be no Saint Nicholas.
With the Carney Liberals continuing to advance much of the Trudeau Liberals’ fiscal and economic policies, Canadians’ personal finances have now been brought to a breaking point. Whether it is filling a grocery cart or deciding on which bill must go unpaid, the financial stress now bearing down on Canadians is something not experienced since the country’s crises of the late 1970s, early 1980s.
Grocery prices and food inflation have Canadians overwhelmed. The latest Canadian Food Sentiment Index concludes, “Food remains the dominant financial stressor in Canadian households.” More than four in five Canadians state that food is the expense that has increased the most for them in the past year. Rising meat prices have Canadians eating a lot less beef, chicken, and pork – and seven per cent of Canadians this past year have given up meat in their diets.
Since 2020, coffee is up 77 percent, beef up 59 per cent, pasta products up 41 per cent, eggs up 41 per cent and bread up 27 per cent. This week Canada’s Food Price Report 2026 sounded the alarm that food prices next year are expected to rise as much as six per cent, with meat seeing an increase of up to seven per cent. A family of four will spend almost $1,000 more on food next year. This report found that 85 per cent of Canadians say food affordability is their largest financial concern.
Across the country the Daily Bread Food Bank reports that 10 million Canadians are living in food insecure households and 2.8 million Canadians are using food banks every single month. In Toronto, one in 10 people make use of a food bank, which works out to 4.1 million yearly visits in that city. In another report just published by Feed Ontario, it is recorded that more than one million Ontarians made 8.7 million visits to food banks across the province in the 12 months between April 2024 and March 2025. In this report, 34 per cent of people said they made their first visit to a food bank in this last year, 23 per cent were employed, 29 per cent were children under 18 years of age, and the number of seniors on fixed incomes have risen – in fact, it’s doubled in the last five years.
Feed Ontario’s 2025 Hunger Report also documents the arguments that increased food bank use often precedes spikes in homelessness, that hunger is associated with chronic illness and poverty-related health care expense, and that job losses, precarious or low-quality work, and high unemployment rates, will result in vulnerable communities with social unrest.
Canadian homeowners are steadily falling behind with their mortgages. Mortgagers in Toronto and Vancouver, on average, pay more than 100 per cent of their annual after-tax income on their mortgages. In more than 60 per cent of major cities, Canadians are now paying in excess of half their take home pay on their mortgage payments, according to a Fraser Institute report. In a recent CIBC Capital Markets report, the bank warns of rising insolvency rates as Canadians’ households finances are strained, and there is a wave of mortgage renewals expected in 2026.
The latest MNP Consumer Debt Index records one in two Canadians (48 per cent) are close to insolvency – within $200 of not being able to pay their bills each month. One in four Canadians (26 per cent) say they are worse off compared to five years ago. One in four Canadians (24 per cent) are eating less, and one in five (19 per cent) are delaying or skipping medical care, admitting that the financial stress is beginning to impact health and well-being.
The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy has recorded that Canadian consumer insolvencies have now climbed to their highest level since the global financial crisis of 2009. Wesley Cowan, licensed insolvency trustee and vice chair of the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals (CAIRP) stated, “Behind these numbers are Canadians who continue to struggle to balance daily expenses with mounting debt obligations. For many, consumer insolvency filings are the result of financial pressures that have been building quietly for some time.” Cowen observed that many Canadians are to a point that feel they have exhausted their options, “People often wait until they feel completely overwhelmed before seeking help.”
According to a new Meridan Credit Union survey, it is now at the point that two in three Canadians (64 per cent) are floundering to keep their head above water, feeling constant financial stress. Indeed, with the government’s failure to deliver on promised major projects, the layoff notices and increased job and food insecurity, and escalating cost of living resulting in overbearing financial stress, Canadians are increasingly recognizing that they are facing hard times, and harder times are to come. So, regardless of the Liberals’ best political spin with their year-end messages, toasting the season and their “elbows up” management of the country, there will be little to no Christmas cheer for many Canadians this year.
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.
