Repealing bad laws is better than exempting favoured companies - "C-5 is thus a classic case of governments picking winners and losers rather than creating the conditions that will allow the best proposals to succeed, as determined by the markets. Making matters worse, if the bill passes, Parliament won’t even get an opportunity to sign off on the specific projects, raising the risk that they’ll be carefully selected for maximum political gain for the Liberal Party of Canada. A better solution would be to simply repeal the laws, or parts thereof, that have prevented the private sector from pursuing these projects in the first place, starting with the unconstitutional Impact Assessment Act (IAA). The IAA was passed in 2018, replacing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which was focused on the federal government’s environmental responsibilities. The IAA is a stunning federal overreach that purportedly gives Ottawa the power to freeze any large project until the government has assessed its “impact” and the environment minister has decided whether it’s in the “public interest” to green-light. The assessment is based on a list of 20 subjective factors, including “Indigenous knowledge,” whether the project “contributes to sustainability” and “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.” The result is that every major project gets mired in years of expensive studies and negotiations, without any ability for investors to predict whether a project will get built. In its first several years, a single major project — the Haisla Nation-led Cedar LNG facility in Kitimat, B.C. — actually made its way through the marathon federal decision-making phase and ended up declared “in the public interest.” Germany, meanwhile, has managed to not only approve, but build LNG facilities in a couple of years. In 2023, in a case brought by the Government of Alberta, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the IAA was partially unconstitutional, since it allowed the federal government to control projects that mostly fall under provincial jurisdiction... Ironically, Ottawa has the constitutional power to control projects that cross provincial borders, such as pipelines, but Prime Minister Mark Carney recently insinuated that provinces can veto those. Although the Trudeau government passed minor tweaks to the IAA, the Liberals have decided to mostly ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, prompting Alberta to threaten another challenge last fall... Doing so would give investors more certainty that their projects will get built as long as they’re economically viable, and they wouldn’t need to worry about successfully lobbying Liberal ministers to get on a special list. That would respect the Constitution and give our economy the boost it so badly needs."
If the Master Economist thinks government direction is how to boost the economy, that must be what Economics tells us
‘It’s just ugly for Prime Minister Carney’: The Roundtable reacts to Canada’s disappointing new economic numbers
Clearly, he's qualified and what matters is not achievements but qualifications
Bruce McGonigal on X - "🌞🇨🇦: Mark Carney admits he is not trying to make Canada economically competitive around the world, but rather climate competitive. How does that help grow the🇨🇦economy? All he is doing is heaping more & more needless regulations on Canadian companies, while mass importing a foreign work force to take Canadian jobs. All during what is shaping up to be a prolonged recession, inside Canada."
Melissa Lantsman on X - "Not even 48 hours in. Mark Carney announces he won’t introduce a budget this year. Because he is a very smart economist and you are not a very smart economist. A Liberal Minister is already fighting pipelines — saying no new ones should get built. Parliament has been shut down since December — and the former failed Immigration and Housing — now Justice Minister is talking about working from home. The new Housing Minister who nearly tripled housing costs as Vancouver’s Mayor — is telling everyone the cost of housing is fine. These people are here to do exactly the same thing they did over the last 10 years."
Carney says to expect both an austerity and investment-focused budget, criticizes Trudeau-era spending - The Globe and Mail - "“It’s an austerity and investment budget at the same time. And that is possible if we’re disciplined,” he said in French, responding to a question on whether the government’s spending review means it’s planning an austerity budget. “The rate of federal government spending over the last decade is more than seven per cent year over year. It’s faster than the rate of growth of our economy,” he added. The Prime Minister said that style of fiscal management at the federal level needs to stop. Mr. Carney‘s comments stand in sharp contrast with the former Liberal government’s approach to fiscal policy. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau won the 2015 election on an anti-austerity platform and largely brushed off calls to rein in spending, resulting in a sharp increase in the size of the federal government... Asked if there were any areas of government that would not be touched by cuts, Mr. Carney said on Wednesday that health care spending, education transfers and transfers to individuals would not be affected. "
So much for left wingers claiming all the deficits were justified. But given the left wing definition of "investment"...
No oil pipeline on the list of projects of national interest - ""There is no [oil] pipeline project on the table," one of them said, despite the federal government's promise to make Canada an "energy superpower."... Smith's office blames the current regulatory environment for hampering pipeline development. The "emissions cap for the oil and gas sector" and the "tanker moratorium" off the northern coast of British Columbia are examples cited by the Alberta government in a written statement sent to Radio-Canada. "Until these policies are changed, modified, or reversed, we will not attract the capital to keep our energy industry competitive and growing globally," it reads... Smith sent a letter to Carney in which she issued an unequivocal warning. "The absence of a pipeline on the initial list will perpetuate the current investment uncertainty and send a sobering signal to Albertans concerned about Ottawa's commitment to national unity," she wrote... The absence of a pipeline project in the first wave of announcements could reassure the Liberal Party's progressive wing, which would like Carney to put more emphasis on climate issues. On Friday, Radio-Canada revealed that some Liberal MPs plan to form an environmental caucus. The initiative aims to create a forum for discussion around climate issues among Liberal MPs... Trans Mountain is the last oil pipeline project to be completed in Canada. Justin Trudeau's government acquired it from Kinder Morgan in 2018, after the company suspended work due to political uncertainty and opposition from the government of British Columbia. Acquired for $4.7 billion, the pipeline's expansion costs have exploded. According to data compiled by the Parliamentary Budget Officer in 2024, Ottawa spent more than $34 billion to complete the project, compared to the initial estimate of $21 billion."
Maybe Canada will be a superpower in government subsidies for "clean" energy
Dismantle 'major projects office,' say policy watchers - "“We don’t need politicians in Ottawa musing about which project they think is in the national interest, we need politicians to cut their taxes and red tape that roadblocks Canada’s natural resource development,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “ Canada doesn’t need politicians and government bureaucrats pretending they know which project is in the national interest — Canada needs politicians and bureaucrats to stop getting in the way with high taxes and onerous regulations.” These “nation-building” construction projects are the centrepiece of the PM’s plans to give Canada’s faltering economy, recovering from a decade of destructive governance and ongoing trade threats from the Donald Trump White House... recent Leger polling suggested nearly half of Canadians think oil and gas pipelines would have the greatest impact on the Canadian economy. “These ‘crises’ are often government inflicted,” Brown said. “This isn’t about the government picking more losers than winners, this is about opening up to our great energy producers to actually solve these problems.” Terrazzano maintains Canada would be better served by overhauling existing policy. “If Carney is serious about getting Canada’s economy firing on all cylinders, then he must go on a massive tax cutting campaign, scrap all carbon taxes and repeal the No More Pipelines Law, the discriminatory West Coast tanker ban, the oil and gas cap and immediately end the ban on the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035,” Terrazzano said. “Ottawa is up to its eyeballs in debt and interest charges cost taxpayers more than $1 billion every week. Carney better not use taxpayers’ money to dole out corporate welfare.”"
Ryan Williams on X - "Mark Carney is sneaking the carbon tax back disguised as “Clean Fuel Regulations.” The Parliamentary Budget Office says it will cost Canadians up to 17¢ more per litre of gas by 2030. Carbon Tax 2.0 is here. 🚨⛽️🇨🇦"
CSIS Warned Beijing Would Brand Conservatives as Trumpian. Now Carney’s Campaign Is Doing It.
Jasmin Laine 🇨🇦 on X - "I ran Mark Carney’s social media through AI and here’s what it said: The repetition of crisis language (“divided world,” “dangerous times”) is often used to justify top-down action, usually without democratic oversight. It lays the emotional groundwork for Canadians to accept erosion of sovereignty or expanded surveillance/censorship, all in the name of “safety” or “stability.”"
Only In Canada | | Facebook - "Carney: Ran on anti-Trump platform during election
Also Carney:
_Signing “executive orders” which in Canada, we don’t have
_Introduce bill C-2 that is MAGA-inspired, aligns Canada’s border policy with the US. If I’m not wrong, one of the criticism Liberals have for Trump is his tough border and refugee policy
_ Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy criticizes this move, saying Carney is bending to Trump's will when DST was rescinded. (CBC video)"
Meme - "IMAGINE VOTING FOR THE SECOND PLANE
NINE YEARS OF TRUDEAU *World Trade Center building on fire*
CARNEY *plane about to crash into second building*"
Meme - The Pleb Reporter @truckdriverpleb: "They tricked gullible Canadians to vote for them again after destroying Canada for 10 years. All because Mark Carney pretended he would stand up to Trump more. Today Mark Carney dropped all counter tariffs. Liberal voters got absolutely played yet again. Gullible sheep *Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland and Steven Guilbeault laughing at people with Elbows Up and Canada merchandise*"
Meme - Ryan Gerritsen: "According to Dean it's Carney who is obviously playing 3D chess. Removing retaliatory tariffs was a f-you to Trump. The mental gymnastics these individuals are fighting through is insane."
Dean Blundell: "Mark Carney removed retaliatory tariffed CUSMA products. Trump demanded that Carney remove the tariffs for months. It's a chess piece he kept on the board until it served Canada's purpose to remove it. Full Story:"
"Mark Carney Told Trump To "GFY" (Politely) Yesterday. Again. Carney won't pay ransom for illegal tariffs-and he's building a country that never needs permission from Washington again."
Calgary Herald on X - "Canada to drop many retaliatory tariffs in olive branch to Trump"
Rob Anderson on X - "I’m old enough to remember when @ABDanielleSmith was called a TRAITOR by eastern pundits and lefties across the country for advocating this exact approach… Wondering if the ‘Elbows Up’ crowd think the Prime Minister a traitor now too? Or is reality and the art of diplomacy making a comeback?"
If only Canada and China placed retaliatory tariffs on the US, does that mean all other governments are run by traitors?
Catherine Swift on X - "Goods under CUSMA should never have been tariffed by Carney in 1st place. US respected CUSMA, Cda did not. More evidence Carney wants to scupper a deal with US cuz he wants “orange man bad” to remain for political purposes while Cdn #smallbiz & Cdn consumers suffer. Outrageous."
Mario Zelaya on X - "Danielle Smith: “I’m against tariffs on the US”
Liberals: “Traitor!! Elbows Up. 😡”
Carney yesterday: “we dropped our counter-tariffs & existing tariffs on CUSMA goods. We have the best deal in the world”
Liberals: “OMG. He’s so right. He’s playing chess!”
AN APOLOGY IS OWED"
Tablesalt 🇨🇦 on X - "The evolution of Mark Carney:
Feb 2025: "Poilievre will kneel before Trump"
Aug 22nd 2025: I am unilaterally removing most counter-tariffs on the USA, and asking for nothing in return"
Lorrie Goldstein on X - "Re those praising PM Carney for CUSMA. Carney had nothing to do with CUSMA and if it was a great deal, then imposing counter-tariffs on CUSMA-compliant U.S. products, which Carney is now lifting, was a mistake. The real test for Carney comes when CUSMA is renegotiated next year."
David Portier 🇨🇦 on X - "Wait, what? So Trump didn’t put tariffs on CUSMA goods (respecting our agreement), but WE put reciprocal tariffs on CUSMA? So, we are the ones who broke CUSMA?? Wtf. Sure didn’t learn that from the CBC."
Left wingers claimed that Carney caving on the digital services tax was a smart move, because it wasn't important (after defending it as important for fairness and to snub the US). Tariffs were even more crucial in their strategy to hurt the US, but of course they'll have a new cope for this
Kirk Lubimov on X - "It's not about Elbows Down - it's worse than that. Let me explain the strategic mistake Canada's Liberal government made in response to tariffs; The Liberal government was trying to flex for the local uninformed voters by trying to pretend to play tough and think Canada can actually combat dollar for dollar tariffs. With an economy 14x bigger than us. So, with the tariff response, they added tariffs to goods that fall under CUSMA. Which is a huge mistake. Not only that violates the trade agreement, but we also need to be renegotiating this trade deal and made it even worse for our future deal. CUSMA trade compliance is what gives Canadian companies a competitive advantage in the US and especially during this global tariffs wars. That's what gives Canada a lower effective tariff rate than other countries. The Liberals almost ruined it. I've long argued and warned against it. Now, the renegotiation starts from a position of bad faith, and the hope is that the US can overlook this. Instead of putting our biggest trade partnership at risk, in the meantime, Canada should have cut taxes, cut red tape, and get to work trying to attract organic capital - which it hasn't done. Nothing will fix things until we fix ourselves first."
The Food Professor on X - "“Recent surveys suggest that nearly 45% of Canadians believe PM Carney erred in eliminating counter-tariffs against the U.S. To me, this underscores a pressing need for greater public understanding of trade economics.”"
Mo on X - "Politicians demanded Canadians stand against the US. Media trumpeted Carney’s policies to fight tariffs with counter tariffs, replace US trade with Europe and be our own best customer. Neither explained the costly economic consequences of those actions."
Time to blame "greedy companies" for prices going up
Ashley Schaeffer on X - "Liberal media is fixated / deflecting to Trump. Meanwhile not a peep from fiddling Carney on Trump and he has caved on all counter tariffs. Zero leadership. He’s busy slapping asses at pride parades and trying to look relevant in Ukraine. Elbows down."
Marc Nixon on X - "The elbows-up crowd said that Poilievre would “cozy up” to Trump. Today Trump himself says he likes Mark Carney (twice). He’s also said before he’s no friend of Poilievre. So congrats Liberals you got played like absolute fools."
Everything (except Mark Carney’s approval rating) is getting worse - "What’s less clear is precisely what voters think Carney is doing well. That same Abacus Data survey found that just 36 per cent of Canadians think the country is headed in the right direction. Not only has Carney made little to no material progress on any of his core campaign promises, but many of Canada’s economic fundamentals have been getting worse... One of Carney’s last actions in the private sector before entering politics was to champion his company, Brookfield Asset Management, moving their head office from Toronto to New York. The move was seen as a bid to shield Brookfield from a wave of protectionist economic measures promised by the incoming administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Plenty of other investors — both Canadian and non-Canadian — have been taking a similar tack. Statistics Canada’s most recent figures on securities transactions show that Canada is in the midst of full-blown capital flight. In just the first four months of 2025, $84 billion in capital left the country. That’s the equivalent of $30 million leaving the country every single hour. Raw Canadian tax rates have actually gone down since Carney took power. He ended the consumer carbon tax and pushed through a promised “middle class tax cut” in the first session of Parliament. So it’s all the more notable that the percentage of GDP being collected as tax is hitting 20-year highs. According to recent figures tallied up by economist Richard Dias, the feds are now collecting enough tax to equal 15.2 per cent of Canadian GDP, with an additional 16.4 per cent of GDP being consumed by provincial and local taxes. The Canadian “tax take” is now higher than at any point since the early 2000s, when Canada was still paying down the sovereign debt crisis of the mid-1990s. And given that this is all happening while taxes are ostensibly going down, it’s a sign that the tax base is being hollowed out, as Canada is requiring an ever-increasing share of national wealth to run the government... The first quarter of 2025 thus yielded yet another record gap between U.S. and Canadian productivity. The average American is now 18 per cent more productive than they were in 2015. The average Canadian managed just two per cent... consumer insolvencies hit 11,464 in June. That’s higher than any point since 2010, when the last cohort of victims from the 2008 Great Recession were finally throwing in the towel. More concerning is that the most severe type of insolvency — bankruptcy — is growing at an outsized rate. This is where we should mention that Canadian household debt is one of the highest in the developed world, with total consumer debt in Canada hitting a historic high of $2.5 trillion in February... It’s been widely reported that youth unemployment is hitting highs not seen in a generation. But Canada’s overall employment rate is also getting steadily worse. The share of Canadians 15 years or older who have a job is now down to just 60.9 per cent. When omitting the temporary job losses caused by COVID lockdowns, that’s the lowest sustained employment rate Canada has seen since the 1990s. With job losses occurring way faster in the private sector than in the public sector, the share of government jobs in the Canadian economy has now hit a high of 21.7 per cent. In other words, there is now a civil servant for every four Canadians employed in the private sector. There are now more bureaucrats in the job market than at any point since the early 1990s, just before a sovereign debt crisis compelled a rapid reduction in the size of the Canadian government... given the share of the Canadian economy devoted to export industries, it’s of some concern that the Canadian trade deficit is hitting lows never seen before. According to recent Statistics Canada figures, April and June both posted the largest Canadian trade deficits on record, at $7.6 billion and $5.9 billion, respectively. This would be fine if the deficits were being driven by increased Canadian imports, but they’re happening mostly because of collapsing Canadian exports. This is being driven largely by U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods... Housing construction is poised to fall dramatically in the coming years, exacerbating the housing shortage at the core of the Canadian affordability crisis."
Of course globally focused Carney hasn't opened his constituency office - "Mark Carney has been Canada’s Prime Minister for slightly over 100 days. Yet, he still hasn’t done the one thing his predecessors did in short order: open a constituency office... An Aug. 12 column in the Ottawa Citizen focused on a local constituent, John Van de Brook, and his concerns about a rat infestation occurring in Barrhaven. He had apparently already reached out to his municipal councillor, and decided to contact Carney to ensure that all bases were covered. According to Bruce Deachman, “it wasn’t so many months ago that his then-MP, Chandra Arya, helped solve a problem that Van de Brook’s wife was having with her permanent resident card. Who knows, he figured, maybe Carney could help with this?” When Van de Brook tried to look up Carney’s constituency office, he discovered that it didn’t exist. “I was disappointed,” he told Deachman, “he should have one.” Two other local residents, Elaine and Lyndsay, also expressed their disappointment that Carney had no local presence in Nepean. “You might see something on Facebook telling you to contact your MP,” the latter said in part. “When I see that, my first thought is that, technically, we have an MP, but we have nowhere to contact an MP. And, because of the role of our MP, it doesn’t feel like there’s someone representing our riding.” Is this a party-based issue or delay? Doesn’t seem like it. Two newly-elected Liberal MPs in the area, Giovanna Mingarelli and Bruce Fanjoy, reportedly have their constituency offices up and running. Deachman contacted the PMO about this matter. While he recognized that Carney is “the prime minister and has more important things to worry about,” he also correctly pointed out “constituency offices aren’t simply a quaint tradition or something going out of style.” What did the PMO reportedly tell him? “We’ll have more to share on that shortly. Be in touch.”... There’s no excuse for Carney not to have a constituency office in Nepean after 100 days as PM. It makes him look like an out-of-touch elite who can’t be bothered to speak to the common people and has no interest in their day-to-day issues, concerns and problems. Which has been an often-cited criticism of this prime minister since his first day on the job"
Kirk Lubimov on X - "To understand how disastrous Canada's July jobs are, you need to understand how these numbers look. The public sector is growing. Mark Carney's deficit spending is out of control. And everything that pays for all of the above, like entrepreneurship & and the private sector, is collapsing"
le père du jour on X - "You'd think an economist would understand this"
The NDP may be in even bigger trouble than we think : r/CanadianConservative - "Maybe, but I don't think a single party is capable of winning over both "Business Liberals" and "Naomi Klein Acolytes" at the same time. And despite their, I would say, tepid though overt overtures to the former group, it was the latter that brought them to power. The evidence of the power of the left bloc within the Liberals is all over Carney's governance. If there's a problem, big government is the automatic answer. Not enough houses? - Fire up the money cannon to build experimental government housing! It doesn't matter that Alberta has already clearly shown the effectiveness of the deregulation approach. Not enough major projects? - Fire up the opaque cabinet winner-picking! It doesn't matter that the root of Canada's crisis is its lack of competitiveness. All of this still comes along with the Trudeau cabinet, all the DEI initiatives, muzzled businesses, a bought and paid for media and a whole whack of other stuff. If you're a self described "business person" you're probably not really moved by a shift from a post-modern to more Soviet style left."
