PJ The Belt - March 16, 2026


Carney is SCREWED! Canada OFFICIALLY in RECESSION


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

150.51093

Word count

1,252

Sentence count

77

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In February, Canada lost 84,000 full-time jobs in the private sector, the worst month of the year for jobs in nearly a decade. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau tried to paint a picture of a booming economy, but the reality is much different. Canada is losing jobs, inflation is rising, and young workers are getting hit first.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 but we might be at this tipping point where a flood of job losses is about to come being our
00:00:06.800 own best customer will put more of every public dollar back into our economy creating good
00:00:12.880 canadian jobs canadian careers using canadian resources and benefiting canadian communities
00:00:19.120 a lot of job losses to report from the month of february yeah not good reading at all the really
00:00:23.280 bad reading actually uh the employment in this country uh saw some significant declines and this
00:00:28.480 is on top of declines that we saw in january as well which were considered more of an edging down
00:00:34.080 these are pretty bad let's show you some of the numbers right now employment declining
00:00:37.520 by 0.4 percent in february that accounts for 84 000 jobs lost these are mainly full-time positions
00:00:43.680 in the private sector which makes these numbers worse so let me get this straight mark carney
00:00:48.640 promised a booming economy and what did canadians actually end up getting 84 000 jobs gone in one
00:00:57.840 month. A total of 109,000 full-time jobs vanishing. And then you have hours being cut across the
00:01:06.740 country and massive layoffs. But don't worry, Carney says, everything is going great, right?
00:01:14.160 Because when your paycheck shrinks, groceries double in price, and young people can't find work, 0.99
00:01:22.480 that's apparently what success looks like in liberal Canada.
00:01:27.840 Prime Minister Carney, I just want to go back to a response you had to a question about Canadian job losses earlier today.
00:01:33.960 You primarily talked about macroeconomics, the Major Projects Office, which has yet to actually approve the project,
00:01:39.620 and some more things the government has announced that are going to be more medium to long-term projects.
00:01:44.020 But what's your message to the 84,000 additional Canadians who are looking for work right now, who are worried about their bills today?
00:01:50.680 Well, the first thing is that any job loss, of course, is a challenge for the individuals, for their families.
00:01:59.640 And what's important is that we're putting in place not just the measures for the long term.
00:02:04.400 By the way, I don't have time to go through all the elements of the premise that aren't exactly accurate there in terms of approvals and moving forward.
00:02:12.660 But also that we're providing support and moving the economy forward.
00:02:16.660 Here's where the Canadian economy is today.
00:02:18.620 Well, we've lost jobs. We've also created jobs.
00:02:22.100 Well, we have taken steps immediately to help Canadians in terms of the tax cut for 22 million Canadians.
00:02:28.760 That is starting to take effect now, the income tax cut there,
00:02:32.980 providing groceries and essentials of benefit to Canadians, so the Canadians most affected.
00:02:38.660 That's a benefit that reaches millions of Canadians, including up to about $1,400 over the course of a year for a family of four.
00:02:48.560 There's other measures that are coming that would provide immediate support.
00:02:52.380 Remember the promise?
00:02:54.180 Canada was supposed to be the fastest growing economy in the G7.
00:02:58.780 Instead, Canada now has some of the highest food inflation and rising unemployment.
00:03:04.860 Full-time jobs are disappearing.
00:03:07.160 Young workers are getting hit first.
00:03:09.640 And economists are warning that the labor market is starting to crack.
00:03:14.080 But don't expect Ottawa to admit there's a problem.
00:03:16.940 Because in liberal politics, if you just say that the economy is strong enough times, maybe Canadians will end up believing it.
00:03:46.940 I think many Canadians would feel that it is a disappointment.
00:03:49.940 Well, Judy, I'd say the following.
00:03:52.940 First is we've created 84,000 net jobs since I became Prime Minister.
00:03:59.940 The United States created about 6,000 jobs over that period of time.
00:04:03.940 Secondly, in terms of major projects, that's the first point.
00:04:06.940 The second is that every month wages have grown faster than inflation.
00:04:10.940 In fact, you saw in the most recent month wage growth above 4%.
00:04:14.940 percent. So Canadians, you know, cost of living moved up a lot. Canadians are getting ahead.
00:04:21.800 It's going to take longer for that to fully realize. But every month, Canadians' wages
00:04:26.000 are growing faster than the rate of inflation. In terms of major projects, we have shifted
00:04:31.680 the whole process for major projects. We've greenlighted Contra Cour that's moving forward.
00:04:38.900 We've approved a series of natural gas projects and moving forward. We've just approved
00:04:43.960 two of the largest uranium projects in the world in the course of the last month.
00:04:49.560 We approved an oil pipe or gas pipeline in British Columbia.
00:04:53.700 We are moving forward with projects such as Bay de Noir off Newfoundland.
00:04:58.320 There's a series of others.
00:04:59.380 You and I were just in the Northwest Territories announcing a series of measures,
00:05:05.220 including the Mackenzie Valley Highway, which is a project that has been on the books my entire lifetime.
00:05:12.340 I'm not a young man anymore. It's been on the books an entire lifetime. And this summer we will
00:05:18.280 have shovels in the ground on McKenzie Valley Pipeline. I can go on. We've removed all the
00:05:23.000 federal barriers from interprovincial trade. So there's more to do without question. But we have
00:05:29.960 moved forward on a very wide range of issues. This is the part that really gets me. The liberals
00:05:35.560 keep telling Canadians that things are better than ever. Better? Really? Food prices up,
00:05:43.560 housing unaffordable, full-time jobs disappearing, and young people can't even get started?
00:05:50.200 But according to Mark Carney, the economy is doing fantastic. Sure, if by fantastic you mean
00:05:57.880 working harder, paying more, and getting less, welcome to the liberal version of economic success.
00:06:06.180 Joining me now is senior economist with the Canadian Labour Congress, D.T. Cochran.
00:06:10.860 Thank you, sir, for being here.
00:06:12.660 So Canada lost roughly 84,000 jobs last month and employment ticking up to 6.7%.
00:06:19.800 What do these numbers tell us about where the labour market could be heading?
00:06:24.720 The really important story of this month's release are when we break down those job losses by full-time and part-time.
00:06:32.640 The 84,000 jobs lost is actually 109,000 full-time jobs lost with a gain of 25,000 jobs.
00:06:42.280 So this could be employers are starting to cut hours because the uncertainty of the economy
00:06:49.760 means they can't keep holding on to the employees that they have been holding on to.
00:06:55.240 The layoff rate has actually been remarkably low.
00:06:58.020 But we might be at this tipping point where a flood of job losses is about to come.
00:07:04.720 Very interesting.
00:07:06.640 Today's report shows full-time jobs and youth employment taking significant losses.
00:07:12.120 Which workers or sectors appear most vulnerable right now?
00:07:15.400 And what does that tell us about inequality and job quality in Canada's labour market?
00:07:20.060 the youth unemployment rate was at generational highs for much of 2025 and then it improved
00:07:29.920 towards the end but now it's heading back up so the trend of unemployment was falling and it's
00:07:36.480 unclear if we're hitting a sort of steady state around 6.7 percent which is still too high but
00:07:43.300 it's also possible that we are about to see the overall unemployment rate climb with youth serving
00:07:49.380 as canaries in the coal mine. And the fact that the majority of the job losses were in the private
00:07:54.820 sector indicate that this is for profit businesses no longer able to hold on to the employees as
00:08:02.340 uncertainty only grows. Hey, if you've made it this far,
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00:08:16.980 See you all in the next one.
00:08:18.660 Peace.