Juno News - Poilievre's PRO-GROWTH budget vs. Carney's HIDDEN spending tricks

00:00:00.000 half of young canadian women say they're putting off kids because they can't afford them but mark

00:00:06.240 carney wants 100 million people not for families for the machine no homes no hope and no future

00:00:16.000 just growth at any cost not to build canada but to change it

00:00:31.680 hi i'm candace malcolm and this is the candace malcolm show folks we are in the final stretch

00:00:36.560 of the election less than one week until e-day very excited i hope that you got out there and

00:00:42.240 voted in the advanced poll my husband and i did we were actually the first people to show up

00:00:46.880 on saturday morning and it was very seamless very easy i did bring my own pen didn't need it though

00:00:52.320 uh so hopefully you got out there and did voted in the advanced polls if not go and vote on election

00:00:58.480 day like i've said throughout the campaign i believe this is the most important election of my lifetime

00:01:04.560 i know you hear that a lot during elections but really we are at a crossroad as a country and i

00:01:09.760 think that the past few days have really really shown this as both parties have released their

00:01:15.440 costed budget and so i didn't want to just skim over this i wanted to do a deeper analysis of the

00:01:21.440 two parties costed budget and so to do this today i'm very pleased to be joined by one of the foremost

00:01:27.760 economic experts in the country dr jack mintz who's an economist and public policy expert and he is

00:01:34.160 the president's fellow of the school of public policy at the university of calgary uh professor

00:01:39.840 mintz thank you so much for joining us it's my pleasure canvas okay so this morning pierre polyev

00:01:46.560 was out there and he released his costed platform he announced it in woodbridge ontario and this is a

00:01:54.080 clip of polyev making that announcement the choice is this a fourth liberal term with mark carney who's

00:02:00.720 reckless liberal plan will add even more debt than trudeau or a new conservative government with a

00:02:07.360 responsible plan to save 125 billion dollars and put us back on the path to growth and security this is

00:02:15.280 my plan for change first we will cut the liberal deficit by 70 percent by cutting back on bureaucracy

00:02:24.320 consultants foreign aid to dictators terrorists and global bureaucracies slashing money for special

00:02:32.000 interests and unleashing a half trillion dollars of extra economic growth by unlocking the power

00:02:38.800 of our resources and home building in the past i've told you that there would be a dollar for dollar

00:02:43.680 law every dollar of new spending would need to be matched with a dollar of savings we've gone even

00:02:48.160 further every dollar of new spending in our platform especially for things like defense will be met with

00:02:55.760 a dollar fifty in savings in other areas gradually and through attrition without mass layoffs we will

00:03:03.280 wind down the cost of the bureaucracy by hiring back only two people for every three who voluntarily retire

00:03:12.400 so he announced 70 cut in the deficit there will still be a deficit with a plan deficit of 31 billion

00:03:19.280 in the first year but like he said they're 70 less than what the liberals were planning for for every

00:03:24.720 new dollar introduced in spending he says it will be matched by one dollar and 50 cents in savings this

00:03:30.160 includes lower taxes 15 savings for the average worker about 900 or 1800 for a family his plan again is to

00:03:38.880 build 2.3 million homes by axing taxes he says which will save up to a hundred thousand dollars uh per

00:03:46.000 home built he also uh as he previously mentioned uh the plan includes locking up criminals and like he

00:03:52.800 says put put in canada first so uh jack what uh what do you make of uh polyev's platform do you think it's

00:03:58.800 a good plan for canada well i think it's a plan that uh certainly is consistent with the views of the

00:04:04.880 conservative party but i think of a lot of canadians who would like to see some more fiscal

00:04:09.920 discipline but at the same time putting priority on the things that are needed um i think the plan uh

00:04:16.320 i think there's a very interesting contrast actually between the liberal plan uh and the um and the

00:04:21.280 conservative plan uh the liberal plan is really based on the federal government spending money to so

00:04:27.680 call catalyze uh investment uh private sector investment in the economy kind of like on a

00:04:33.280 partnership basis but government-led uh decision making while the conservative plan is based on

00:04:40.880 removing obstacles to private investment and building up private investment through either uh lower

00:04:49.040 regulations by getting the impact assessment act uh or or by uh cutting taxes uh so i think there

00:04:57.520 are uh a clear difference between the two approaches uh of the two parties well it's interesting too

00:05:04.080 because i mean i think a lot of us when we hear a conservative government we expect to have a

00:05:08.880 balanced budget i think that polyev is being quite cautious right he could have probably come up with a

00:05:13.680 platform that was able to balance the budget immediately by doing deeper cuts but he doesn't want to do

00:05:19.040 that so this uh platform that he released has a 31 billion dollar deficit in year one

00:05:27.520 uh 30 uh 31.5 billion in year two in 2026 27 uh 23 billion in year three 14 billion in year four

00:05:36.160 and then a promise to balance the budget so not quite as hawkish fiscally as uh someone myself would

00:05:43.440 have liked but i think it's a bit more cautious um interestingly as well polyev announced that he's

00:05:47.920 not he's not his not his goal isn't to go in there and slash the public service he says again cautiously

00:05:53.280 that he will only hire two federal employees for every three who retire so to me this is a very

00:06:00.720 gradual sort of conservative um budget uh what did you think that he could have gone further and and

00:06:07.120 boosted the economy even more or do you think that this was a smart uh decision well i think it's uh

00:06:12.160 kind of a i think a realistic uh position to take i mean as everyone acknowledges the the federal

00:06:18.080 government has just uh ballooned in size uh in the past 10 years i mean the total number of employees

00:06:24.720 has gone up 40 percent it would be one thing if we said that oh we're getting really much better

00:06:30.160 services out of the federal government but we're not and so i think there is a need to scale back the

00:06:35.680 size of of the government labor force plus all the contract tracking that has been going on it's been a

00:06:41.680 huge increase in that as well so uh definitely there's uh room for cutting there uh could have

00:06:47.840 been more aggressive potentially uh i think that that could be the case but i think he did take a

00:06:54.480 more let's say cautious approach i think uh to that uh of course uh you know he is living in an ottawa area

00:07:02.400 um you know constituency so perhaps he's more sensitive to the issues around the public service

00:07:07.920 uh for that reason but it's certainly not like what's happening in the united states uh with doge

00:07:13.280 which is a very uh very different type of approach um but also what we see in the carney uh plan uh the

00:07:20.480 one that the liberals are putting it ahead uh i don't see any real cut in the size of the civil service

00:07:26.720 and in fact as you mentioned about the deficits not going going down by the conservatives but not

00:07:32.160 balancing the budgets when you look at the liberal deficits they actually go up uh in size

00:07:37.920 although it's it's there's a little bit of uh confusion between what's being measured

00:07:42.960 because there's a separation between what's called operating uh the operating budget and the capital

00:07:48.560 budget but capital spending is going up by 200 billion dollars in the in the liberal uh budget in

00:07:54.400 that or plan and and that 200 billion is uh is close to six percent of gdp so it's a very remarkable

00:08:03.520 increase in the in the size of the debt of course all this is going to be different in the years from

00:08:09.280 now because i suspect the world is going to be going through a very tough time with the recession

00:08:16.080 as a result of the trump tariffs that are certainly having a very significant impact on on trade flows

00:08:23.200 and and what's happening across countries well it's interesting okay let's switch over then and start

00:08:27.920 talking about mark carney's budget because one of the things that you you just mentioned is this

00:08:33.040 kind of sleight of hand that seems to be taking place with the difference between a capital uh deficit

00:08:38.640 and and not or a capital budget and operational budget and so you know typically you would assume

00:08:44.400 that you know operations is the day-to-day spending of the government and then the capital spending

00:08:48.400 is investments in the future and somehow in mark carney's costed platform uh budget he sort of

00:08:55.840 increased the number of things that you could typically uh discuss describe as being investments

00:09:01.760 in the country and so that that was sort of a way that he could say that he you know he's not

00:09:07.600 racking up as much deficit as possible could you help us understand like what what he did and why

00:09:12.640 is that allowed how like how is it that a prime minister could just like change the way that we

00:09:17.200 account of our federal spending well first of all uh the federal government and all the provinces

00:09:23.120 have adopted capital budgeting for a long time now and in fact you calculate an operating budget uh

00:09:29.360 where you subtract off uh uh you know from uh the revenues received and all the costs of running the

00:09:35.200 government including depreciation costs on capital and then you might have a capital budget that you

00:09:42.800 you know you report the the capital and then as it depreciates you you know provide a stock but

00:09:48.720 uh that's been done you know by the provinces uh and and the federal government for for some time

00:09:54.960 but there's always this issue about what you call capital and if you put money into a bunch of funds

00:10:00.880 that may not be spent until a later time you're not necessarily creating capital or at least not much

00:10:06.640 capital and and so it's very confusing actually uh in terms of what is being called capital uh in

00:10:13.120 without further explanation coming from the liberal party uh and so when i look at uh all this so-called

00:10:19.280 capital expenditure it looks like to me it's just a bunch of uh money to be put aside to be spent in

00:10:25.600 the future uh in fact they talk about you know cash costs versus accrual accounting and it does sound

00:10:31.520 like they're they're naming a lot of things as capital but it's not clear it really is capital

00:10:36.640 well it's so interesting and so even with that sleight of hand that's taken place

00:10:40.560 the liberal budget still would have 130 billion dollars in new spending with no timeline for a

00:10:48.160 balanced uh budget that was according to the national post um interesting there's an account

00:10:53.600 on x called canada spends it's an advocacy uh organization started by former liberal staffers

00:10:59.360 who are concerned about the fiscal future of the country so the canada spends account put this out

00:11:05.280 which just shows it says a reminder of past deficits so you can see 2024 uh back to 20 uh 2019

00:11:13.840 2020 we have a deficit this is going backwards 48 billion 61 billion 35 billion 90 billion 327 billion

00:11:21.200 that was post-covid and then 39 billion and then i look ahead at the projected deficits under mark carney

00:11:28.240 uh so first year 32 62 billion next year 59 billion 54 billion 47 billion and so many were pointing out

00:11:36.880 you know these are this is trudeau level spending if not more you know it is actually more spending

00:11:43.120 than the current year and so maybe it's because it's an election and politicians often make promises

00:11:48.480 during campaigns and they have to include those but i think to many the idea of bringing in mark

00:11:54.000 kearney a central banker someone who understands the economy from a liberal perspective is you know

00:11:59.680 he's got similar views on social issues as justin trudeau he believes in sort of the diversity equity

00:12:05.360 inclusion mantra of the left but he's fiscally responsible he's a banker he's you know he's got

00:12:12.320 this persona as being a a hand someone who could guide our guide our country through a crisis and yet what

00:12:20.000 what i'm seeing here is just a continuation of justin trudeau's uh spend spend thrift sorry spend happy

00:12:27.760 um government so uh okay what is your what is your uh view on this well i i think uh there's no question

00:12:35.760 that actually there's uh not only an increase in spending uh including capital spending so you got

00:12:41.840 you know you got both operating and capital spending rising um but uh but i think what's more worrisome is

00:12:48.720 any lack or discussion about uh fiscal anchors as we know if you don't have a fiscal anchor

00:12:56.000 there tends to be not enough fiscal discipline taken on by the government and perhaps there will be a

00:13:01.440 fiscal anchor uh that uh that the liberals will introduce if they do win power uh they've had a

00:13:08.080 very weak one in the past you know uh which uh is that we're going to try to let the debt gdp ratio not

00:13:14.240 rise but of course it has risen all through the time that they've been uh been in power but they're

00:13:19.120 not the first ones to do that you have to go back to the days of uh of the uh pierre elliot trudeau when

00:13:26.000 he was prime minister uh they they ran up the debt quite a bit and then also the marooney government

00:13:31.440 also ran up debt and the fact they used to use a fiscal anchor that oh we're going to reduce the debt

00:13:36.400 gdp ratio uh over time but then every budget it kept getting revised upwards the debt gdp ratio and

00:13:42.880 they never really accomplished anything so i don't think it's a very good physical anchor

00:13:47.040 and the best anchor actually is moving towards a balanced budget and so i think that's where the

00:13:51.680 conservative plan does have i think the stronger aspect to it but again let me warn that we're in

00:13:57.920 a very we're in uncharted waters right now because of the significant changes that are happening

00:14:04.400 internationally with respect to trade flows and and uh frankly a lot of these plans are probably

00:14:10.480 going to get blown out of the water uh in that the deficits are going to end up higher uh and

00:14:16.000 there'll be more borrowing uh because of the fact that the economy may end up weaker by next year

00:14:21.040 so i i'm not actually counting that uh that these plans are really going to end up uh you know working

00:14:28.160 i think more important is the direction of the plan the conservatives certainly will try to keep

00:14:33.200 some fiscal responsibility in holding back expenditures to to a certain extent and and

00:14:38.800 cutting where where they can or at least not allowing it to go out of whack uh if we do end

00:14:44.400 up with a recession well i think the liberals uh plan does not show a lot of um uh i would argue

00:14:51.200 fiscal discipline and and the fact that right now i don't see any fiscal anchor making sense we no longer

00:14:57.040 have the one percent uh deficit uh limitation that was in you know that was in the last trudeau budget

00:15:03.760 uh and and we don't have a promise to try to keep the debt gdp ratio falling in fact it's very

00:15:09.360 interesting in the liberal plan and the costing they didn't even show what happens to the debt gdp ratio

00:15:14.400 it's not in their lines and so it's uh it was something that it was actually kind of hidden

00:15:19.840 uh in the in their actual document well doesn't that just show what they actually think about the

00:15:24.400 thing that they've been saying for the last uh 10 years there was a clip that was circulating that

00:15:28.320 showed uh rosemary barton on the cbc she was talking about how this uh costed uh budget platform

00:15:34.960 was written weeks ago and that they basically just had to update it once mark carney became

00:15:39.200 leader so it really was written by the same uh policy people uh that were writing the budget for

00:15:44.320 justin trudeau and interesting that they stressed so much that that gdp ratio uh net debt that was what

00:15:49.840 christia freeland always said um because they included they they weighed uh pensions and other

00:15:56.640 assets that aren't really government assets against the the debt of course they also didn't include

00:16:01.680 any subsovereign borrowing and debt which would also be part of the picture in canada so i never

00:16:07.280 liked the net uh debt to gp ratio but um interesting that they themselves said it well i want to talk to

00:16:13.120 you a little bit about this storm um and this crisis that is coming uh from the tariffs that are being

00:16:18.640 imposed by donald trump i mean that was the theme of the election early on and it seemed like we were

00:16:24.240 sort of moving away from it and especially during the debates last week the focus really was on

00:16:29.840 canadian policy as an election debate should be focusing on you know what we can do our domestic

00:16:34.960 policies things that have gotten us into this economic problem in the first place um with the

00:16:40.880 rising cost of living with mass immigration those kind of issues um so like do you do you think that

00:16:47.280 the issue with tariffs and trump have come back and overtaken and you know overtaken the election

00:16:53.120 or do you think that the ballot box question will be something more like the cost of living

00:16:56.800 and what canadians uh what the canadian leader can do about it well i think the tariffs uh have played

00:17:02.560 a role in this election and i think it's uh it shows up i think uh vis-a-vis the uh issue around

00:17:08.000 leadership uh you know the uh you know the argument has been made that uh mark carney's got you know

00:17:14.400 tremendous uh background in terms of you know once being the governor of the bank of canada the bank

00:17:20.080 of england uh you know etc and so as a result would be able to deal better with the trump tariff issues

00:17:27.200 and and negotiations than uh the peer poly of sadden board of a background as a politician over the years

00:17:34.080 although uh we have to remember experience as a politician is a lot different than experience as a

00:17:39.280 bureaucrat and i think i think that's something which uh people have not paid much attention to

00:17:45.120 but i think that's where the trump terrorists have done they are scaring canadians and and they do feel

00:17:50.400 the concern about it but it's interesting that no one really has a plan about how they're going to deal

00:17:55.600 with it except to really say well we we need to build the clean economy in fact that's probably the

00:18:02.000 best response uh to be made and and i think this is where uh the issues play in the hand of of of

00:18:09.520 polyev because uh he can go back and say look we've had 10 years of a lost decade uh we've had uh really

00:18:17.040 not very good public policy when it comes to uh building the economy uh in fact uh canada's performance

00:18:23.760 has been the worst of all the g7 countries in fact the calculations i've shown is that uh gdp per capita

00:18:29.680 has hardly grown in in the past 10 years it's been virtually stalled uh and and this is unlike any

00:18:36.880 other g7 country and in fact it's well below the oecd on average uh and and here we've had a

00:18:42.560 time with a pandemic and europe is weak and we've still done worse than other countries and so uh you

00:18:50.000 know certainly policies have not worked very well in terms of building up the capacity of the canadian

00:18:55.120 economy and the incomes that can canadians can enjoy and and we are falling behind uh the rest

00:19:01.280 of the world including united states uh where per capita incomes are now much higher than we

00:19:06.640 find here in canada in fact it's a sad story as i wrote recently just on friday that got published in

00:19:12.880 the print version of the national post today that ontario is now the sick man of north america it's had

00:19:19.280 two decades now of the lowest growth amongst all the provinces its per capita gdp now is is hardly any

00:19:25.840 different than the low than the poorest u u.s states uh like mississippi and alabama in fact it's a bit

00:19:32.160 less than south carolina and so it sort of tells you the story that canada is not doing very well

00:19:38.000 and and i think this is where the election some of those election issues have come back which has

00:19:42.640 probably helped a bit the conservatives but so far i think it hasn't made a real dent the question is

00:19:48.560 is the liberal plan better in building up that economy or is the conservative plan better and i

00:19:53.600 think that i think is the is the let's say uh 20 billion dollar question for this election well it

00:20:00.080 seems to me that mark carney hasn't really learned the lessons that one might learn from the last five

00:20:04.640 years or so in public policy i mean his strategy it seems to me in the uk was the sort of idea the

00:20:11.840 keynesian idea of quantitative easing spending money to boost economic growth that that hasn't

00:20:17.440 come to fruition in canada when i looked at his budget and tried to read through it it seemed to

00:20:22.480 me like the deference was sort of what i would call crony capitalism like give lots and lots of money

00:20:27.840 pump it into the private sector have government working hand in glove with big corporations and that

00:20:34.480 somehow this would be the answer to our economic woes like it hasn't worked uh postcode i mean i think

00:20:40.480 that many canadians do connect that dot that the reason we have massive inflation in canada and you

00:20:46.400 know across the western world is because governments blew out the bank during covet with spending and

00:20:52.320 that is the result you know when governments print lots of money there's lots more money in the economy

00:20:57.200 which means that prices get driven up and yet it doesn't seem like he's learned that lesson in fact

00:21:02.720 he's doubling and tripling down on it with with his plan what do you think uh well i think that's what

00:21:08.160 concerns me about the liberal plan particularly is that it's really focused on uh more money being

00:21:13.760 spent uh by governments uh in partnership uh with the private sector um certainly by creating all all

00:21:20.880 these different funds whether in the past was the canada growth fund which it's questionable how much

00:21:26.080 it's really achieved uh and now we're creating new funds in order to try to uh catalyze as as mark

00:21:34.400 carney likes to use that word catalyze uh uh private sector investment uh whether that is actually the

00:21:41.200 best way of achieving that i i i've never been convinced because as we know governments and

00:21:46.640 private sectors uh investors have very different uh objectives uh private sector invest investors want

00:21:54.000 to make money profitability is important and it's absolutely critical uh for the bottom line uh while

00:22:00.880 governments are interested in other objectives besides profits and in fact as we've seen you

00:22:06.480 know in the united states with the inflation reduction act and uh you know and giving out all sorts of

00:22:13.280 tax credits and other uh types of of subsidies to to the private sector the government starts attaching

00:22:20.560 all sorts of conditions to it you know that they have to have a certain type of gender balance let's 0.97

00:22:24.880 say in their labor force so they have to have unionized wages or etc and so then the private

00:22:30.800 sector people get a little shy of even touching uh these kind of this kind of money because it comes

00:22:36.320 with a lot of things uh attached to it and and i suspect that's going to happen uh with the liberal

00:22:41.520 plan as well uh you know the money will be given but it's going to be given on based on certain conditions

00:22:47.840 and whether that's going to actually uh push investment i'm not certain because if you have a very

00:22:54.320 uncertain world and uh things are not looking very good investment won't go up and in fact

00:23:00.560 people forget that mark carney when he was back in canada uh governor he kept on talking about uh dead

00:23:06.880 cash held by the you know dead money held by the private sector they weren't making investment well

00:23:12.720 the private sector will make investments if it looks like the economy is going to be doing well

00:23:17.520 and and if their cost of capital isn't too high or regulations aren't in their way

00:23:21.520 uh and so if we don't solve those issues uh that's not actually going to generate uh more more

00:23:28.160 investment and i think uh i think that's actually a fatal flaw in the approach that's being used in

00:23:33.840 the liberal plan where i don't see it generating 500 billion dollars investment uh based on 150 billion

00:23:41.440 dollars spending by uh by by the uh by the government on transfers to businesses uh it sounds

00:23:47.920 like the brookfield approach to growing all these you know assets uh in order to grow the economy but i

00:23:54.960 don't think this is uh really the best approach for governments to achieve uh the kind of things they

00:24:00.240 want to do i think we need some what i'd like to call big bang uh reforms that really try to push the

00:24:06.880 canadian economy forward uh through major deregulation and tax reforms and and other policies that

00:24:14.240 that really spur economic activity well canada absolutely needs it and i think this sort of like

00:24:20.080 ying and yang conservative liberal is like you know we try we tried the liberal thing for a decade

00:24:24.800 and look at where it's got us it's not working let's try something else let's let's zag let's go

00:24:29.360 another direction i want to quickly get your response to this black locks report i'm not sure

00:24:34.800 if you've seen it but uh really alarming the headline over at black lock says fed report predicts collapse

00:24:41.360 and so it's based on a privy council report called uh here's the report future lives social mobility

00:24:48.800 in question basically saying that you know looking at what canada might look like in 2040 and it does not

00:24:56.240 paint a good picture saying that we're already at the place in canada where young people can't 0.85

00:25:02.000 necessarily afford the same standard of living that their parents have they would potentially have a

00:25:06.640 decline in standard of living from their own parents um this this paints a picture of something even

00:25:13.040 more frightening by 2040 the toronto sun also reported on it saying government report predicts 2040

00:25:18.640 dystopia collapse collapsed economy hunting for food so that was one of the little snippets in here that

00:25:24.160 they're worried that people will begin um hunting on public lands just to eat uh things will be so

00:25:30.800 dire uh in the not so distant future um do you think that this is is something that we should be

00:25:37.520 preparing for do you think this is uh kind of hyperbolic or you know is this is this the direction canada

00:25:43.360 will be heading towards if we continue to vote liberal in this country well i'm not going to uh you

00:25:49.360 know be partisan in terms of who we're voting for i think any party that uh doesn't address i think

00:25:55.520 these issues around productivity are going to have a you know it's going to create a major problem for

00:25:59.680 canada as the oecd and number of studies have already shown is that uh you know we are going to

00:26:06.640 be a pretty we're going to be pretty low ranked as a country uh in the next 20 30 years if we continue

00:26:12.720 doing what we've done in the in the last 10 years uh and i and i don't blame just the the federal

00:26:18.960 government in terms of the policies i also put a lot of blame on some of the provinces uh particularly

00:26:24.560 our largest province ontario which is 40 percent of the kane economy uh has not exactly has had a

00:26:31.120 stellar economic record oh in uh in the past 20 years either both under uh liberal and now conservative

00:26:40.320 government so i think i think we really have a significant problem on our hand but i think the

00:26:45.600 one thing that uh that report probably doesn't talk about is the fact that we may end up losing a lot of

00:26:51.120 young canadians who will go elsewhere uh to work and in fact in some work i've been doing with somebody

00:26:57.760 we've been finding that um you know that the advantages uh offered elsewhere like in the united states

00:27:04.000 is very attractive for very young people uh to decide on on where to go and some of the young

00:27:09.200 people i talk to they are very seriously thinking about moving to the united states uh you know

00:27:14.880 even with all the noise that's made now is being created over over uh u.s uh policies vis-a-vis tariffs

00:27:21.280 and everything else uh and you know canadians you know getting their elbows up and all this sort of

00:27:27.440 stuff uh and and newfound patriotism but you know if young people are seeing that they can get twice

00:27:34.080 a salary elsewhere compared to canada uh and and have as just as good a life as it would encounter

00:27:41.680 they'll move and i think that's going to be the biggest danger down the road where we're going to

00:27:46.720 have we're going to be losing some of our best and brightest uh to other countries because we're not

00:27:51.840 offering uh the kind of society that that people can enjoy and so we'll have to see how all you know how

00:27:58.560 the world develops in the in the next number of years i i i find even trying to forecast the next

00:28:03.760 few years is difficult never mind try to forecast 20 30 years down the road when all sorts of things

00:28:10.400 can can happen well i i completely agree i would argue that the brain drain has been happening for

00:28:15.440 decades i mean um you know i think that the best and the brightest do go to the united states in just

00:28:20.000 about every field my husband and i lived in the silicon valley for a few years and i couldn't believe it

00:28:24.720 jack there was a club called the c100 they claimed that there's a hundred thousand canadians in the

00:28:29.120 bay area so you think of you know silicon valley the the tech hub of the world the place where the

00:28:34.080 most sort of thoughtful intellectual uh creative engineers and others go to work in the in these

00:28:41.520 companies it's sort of a sad reflection and that's that's looking backwards that's how already

00:28:46.560 happened over the past i don't know 10 20 years you know looking forward if if things continue in that

00:28:52.400 direction it won't just be the best and the brightest won't it will no longer be like the

00:28:55.760 top five or ten percent of the graduates it'll be like the top 40 percent and our our poll we did a

00:29:00.880 poll that asked canadians whether they'd be interested in becoming americans and it was the young cohort

00:29:06.160 the 18 to 34 that had the highest percentage of people who would say yes especially males you know when

00:29:12.400 you think of those young men trying to start out their lives trying to start their careers build a

00:29:16.080 family it was something like 45 of them said that they would take american citizenship if it was offered to

00:29:21.360 them uh which is which is a scary statistic um you know we're heading into the very last uh week of

00:29:27.120 the campaign from all measures things look incredibly close so i just want to read through

00:29:32.000 a few sort of recent polls here ipsos asked the question over the weekend is it time for a change

00:29:38.080 54 said it's time for another party to take over 46 said that the liberals have done a good job and that

00:29:44.800 carney deserves to be re-elected uh approval uh for the liberal government um 50 50 so exactly dead

00:29:52.080 even according to this poll uh the ipsos poll overall found that the liberals were at 41 the

00:29:57.840 conservatives at 38 so we're talking about almost within the margin of error and that is with the

00:30:03.840 ndp down at 12 it's hard to imagine that the conservatives might get 38 39 and still lose the

00:30:09.360 election that would typically be a high enough percentage to win i don't think that justin trudeau ever

00:30:14.400 broke 40 i don't think that stephen harper did either um so we could see a very truly divided

00:30:19.440 country main street had a similar poll that came out yesterday 41 for the conservatives 41 for the

00:30:26.880 liberals so we're looking at an incredibly close election now i know that you don't like to get

00:30:31.680 into the partisan um side of things and i tend to agree that in ontario the problem hasn't gotten any

00:30:36.640 better under conservatives i would say that the conservatives just sort of done a continuation

00:30:40.720 of what the liberals had done uh prior but i'm wondering if you think that these

00:30:45.760 costed platforms and these budgets being released in the last week will this have an impact on the

00:30:52.000 election do you think that it could help sway the vote one way or the other well it could i mean

00:30:58.480 i think there's going to be a bit of an alarm over the uh over the liberal party platform which has

00:31:04.880 such an increase in in government spending and debt uh that uh that they even forecast and that's

00:31:11.280 without a recession i actually looked at their uh gdp numbers that uh you can calculate from from

00:31:17.680 their from the numbers and and uh it gdp rises from uh the 25 uh 2025 26 fiscal year uh it's uh about

00:31:28.080 3.2 trillion dollars and rises over the next three years to um 35.5 trillion dollars i'm looking at

00:31:35.600 my numbers so sorry so so i'm looking down for that um and so it's about a a 12 close to a 12 percent

00:31:42.800 increase in other words about a four percent uh increase in nominal gdp every year that's not a

00:31:48.560 recession and so just imagine if things get a lot worse it's it's not going to be particularly uh

00:31:54.800 uh a positive uh outcome and i think you know when we talk about the resource sector particularly i

00:32:01.360 think this is where you know that uh there's a significant divide between the conservatives and

00:32:06.160 liberals because the conservatives really do want uh do understand that resources are a significant

00:32:12.720 comparative advantage for canada we should never give that up as our as our most important um lever that

00:32:19.440 we have vis-a-vis trade internationally and when you look at the top exports coming out to canada

00:32:24.560 they're all primarily based on resources the only one uh that is significant uh is uh is autos uh and

00:32:33.840 and auto parts uh but the rest is all mainly resource-based uh products uh and that's not

00:32:40.480 surprising you tend to have your biggest comparative advantage where you uh you know have certain uh uh

00:32:47.680 advantages uh particularly and we have uh lost a great deal in terms of resource development

00:32:53.360 because we you know we're not building l and g plants we're not we're not getting oil out to

00:32:58.640 other parts of the world we have made ourselves completely dependent on the u.s market when it

00:33:02.880 comes to both uh vehicles and energy and resources um because over 90 percent of our oil and gas is sold

00:33:11.360 to the united states over 90 percent of our autos are sold to the united states and so here here we're

00:33:16.640 completely dependent on the u.s economy and and uh we have not developed that much in terms of

00:33:22.800 diversification uh that we could have done and that's where i think uh you know important changes

00:33:28.800 have to be made if we're going to get uh we're gonna we're going to improve gdp give higher incomes

00:33:34.080 and let people feel that they can stay in canada and have a very good life uh not just in terms of

00:33:39.760 incomes but also uh and opportunities but also in terms of the kind of lifestyle that we can offer

00:33:45.520 you know despite our cold weather which is of course never a positive thing for any country to

00:33:50.240 have but that's what life is i guess it's better sometimes than being in really hot weather so i

00:33:56.320 think you know uh one can live with that as well but i do worry about about canada uh particularly

00:34:02.880 uh in terms of its long-term growth uh and not just in the short term and i think i think right now

00:34:10.320 this election is really important because i think there are two very different paths uh that are

00:34:16.480 being uh suggested by the two parties in terms of how to generate more productivity more growth

00:34:22.880 one is for governments to get out of the way and the other one is for governments to be the helping

00:34:27.440 hand uh and uh and whether that succeeds or not of course is a big question absolutely well dr

00:34:34.240 mintz thank you so much uh for joining the show that's uh dr jack mintz from the university of calgary we

00:34:38.880 really appreciate your time today no pleasure all right folks we'll be back again tomorrow with all

00:34:43.440 the news i'm kendis malcolm this is the kendis malcolm show thank you and god bless

Juno News - April 22, 2025

Poilievre's PRO-GROWTH budget vs. Carney's HIDDEN spending tricks

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript