Canadian public sector jobs increased by 13 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic while the private and self-employed sectors saw just 3.6 percent growth, says a new report.
“Canada’s net job creation in recent years has been disproportionately driven by growth in government employment rather than growth in the private sector,” said Ben Eisen, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of the report.
Trudeau has used government spending to masquerade as economic growth.
In the 1970s, Richard Crossman, a minister in Harold Wilson’s UK government, published a set of diaries outlining the code of ministerial duties in a parliamentary system. Ministers, Crossman explained, were the essential link between the executive and legislative functions of government. They exercised decision-making power while being accountable to Parliament. This power required a degree of independent discretion, and ministers were responsible for matters within their departmental remit, provided they adhered to the principle of collective cabinet solidarity.
This week in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau faced off against a small herd of rebellious Liberals who, as it turned out, all showed up for the staring contest with a raging case of pink eye.
Basically, two dozen of his MPs whispered, “Please go away,” and the Prime Minister said, “No,” and smiled his Cheshire Cat smile, and then everyone went back to what they were doing before.
In elections earlier this year, incumbent leaders and parties in India, South Africa, France, and Britain took a beating. America’s President and Japan’s Prime Minister were pushed to step aside before their parties face voters. Germany’s Chancellor is lucky his country won’t hold national elections until next year. Voters everywhere, it seems, want change. Now it’s Justin Trudeau’s turn to face the music.
On a warm July night two years ago, Moninder Singh received a chilling message from special federal agents who showed up at his house in British Columbia: You are being formally warned that there is an imminent threat to your life. Avoid public spaces. Enhance security at home.
The first person he called — a friend and fellow activist in a campaign promoting an independent Sikh homeland carved out of India — had just gotten the same ominous warning.
A year later, that friend, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was dead.
Canada delivered its biggest affordability measure in years—shrinking its population. That was the takeaway from a new report from BMO Capital Markets this week. The bank has repeatedly warned that promises to triple the new homes built and create affordability with supply, weren’t grounded in reality. Now that Canada is quietly acknowledging this failure, they see real affordability on the way as scaled up building meets a shrinking population.
Promising? Maybe. But the damage is done.
Longtime Liberal MP Wayne Long says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should give more weight to the views of his backbenchers in determining his future leading the Party, rather than relying on those in his immediate orbit.
“Seriously, get away from your inner circle,” Long told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday. “I don’t want to name names, but get away from people, because obviously, prime ministers are somewhat insulated.”
Reports about the death of Canada’s immigration consensus have arguably been exaggerated. But there are warning signs — both for the public’s attitude toward immigration and for the Trudeau government’s legacy.
The clearest evidence that the consensus is in some danger can be found in polling conducted by the Environ ics Institute. For 50 years, Environics has been asking Canadians whether they agree or disagree with the statement that “overall there is too much immigration in Canada.”
For nearly 25 years, starting in the late 1990s, a majority of Canadians disagreed with that statement. In 2022, the gap was particularly wide — 69 per cent disagreed, just 27 per cent agreed.
For decades, Canada has cast itself as a country open to newcomers, with immigration policies tailored to boost its population, fill labour gaps and settle refugees fleeing conflict from around the world.
But in recent months, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he intends to significantly cut the number of immigrants allowed in Canada as public concern grows over inaccessible social services, high costs of living and unaffordable housing.
It is a major shift for both the country and Trudeau, who ran in 2015 on a platform of embracing multiculturalism as a key part of Canadian identity.
Trudeau sees 3rd world migrants from cultures incompatible with Canadian values as the future of the Liberal party.
These cuts are cosmetic and the abuse will continue.
It was, by all accounts, a “robust” discussion at Wednesday’s Liberal caucus meeting. And not only robust, but “frank” and “difficult.”
And why not? Ostensibly Liberal MPs were there to debate whether Justin Trudeau should stay on as Leader. But there were also important principles at stake, as I need hardly tell you. Principles like: will I lose my seat? Or: will I get into cabinet?
Reporter claims ‘Canada is relinquishing its welcome mat,’ when in fact we are returning to pre-pandemic levels
In 2017, when our fresh-faced prime minister was still under the mistaken impression that incessant virtue-signalling was a reasonable way to run a country, Justin Trudeau issued a proclamation to the world’s huddled masses: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada.” Canada, in other words, was instituting an open-door immigration policy, in contrast to the United States, where president Donald Trump had just signed an executive order intended to curb Muslim immigration.
When asked if Canada is becoming a safe haven for terrorists, David Harris, former Chief of Strategic Planning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) stated, “I think there is a dire risk of this happening. We are already playing a significant role in international terror funding. We have 50 terrorist organizations of a variety of descriptions and a good number of them are the so-called world class ones.” While addressing a Special Committee of the Senate, former director of CSIS Ward Elcock stated, “I’ll be as blunt as I can be, we cannot become, through inaction or otherwise, what might be called an official state sponsor of terrorism.”
The Online Streaming Act, rushed through Parliament as Bill C-11, isn’t in full force yet. Already, though, it’s begun to claw back a generous cut of streamer revenues — and we’re already worse off for it.
In June, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it would be taking a five per cent cut of Canadian revenues from major foreign streaming services, such as Netflix and Youtube, starting in 2024, supposedly to invest in Canadian programming. In dollars, that’s supposed to bring in $200 million per year.
When circumstances warrant, the prime minister deserves to be praised — if faintly.
He has been roundly criticized —not least by members of his own caucus — for not listening, and for digging in when it is clear that the government needs to retreat.
Yet on Thursday, he unveiled a new immigration plan that cut the number of newcomers by one-fifth in response to criticism from across the country that the flood of arrivals in recent years has been too dramatic for the housing, education and health-care systems to absorb.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says some Liberal MPs have told Tories they would vote in favour of a non-confidence motion against the government.
Speaking to reporters on Oct. 24, Poilievre said he had spoken with “numerous Liberal MPs” who are worried the Liberal government’s carbon tax policy will cost them their seats, and that they want to vote against that plan.
