Western Standard - December 15, 2023


Alise Mills discusses the political year it was and what to look forward to in 2024


Episode Stats

Length

2 minutes

Words per Minute

153.19759

Word Count

321

Sentence Count

27


Summary

In this episode, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is joined by his wife, Sophie Grinsell, to discuss the impact of the financial crisis of 2008 on the Canadian economy and the impact it had on the rest of the country.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 They were scared and frightened for many different reasons, including, you know, how they were going to raise their kids and still continue to earn a living.
00:00:07.940 This was uncharted territory.
00:00:09.380 So it gave the prime minister a political shield like no other leader has ever received before.
00:00:15.800 And it blinded or eclipsed us or as Canadians, it eclipsed Canadians to the reality or blocked them from the reality of some of the decisions that Mr. Trudeau had made.
00:00:27.700 It also blocked him from being accountable to any of the scandals that he was carrying forward.
00:00:33.720 And everybody was just sort of focused in on themselves and what they were doing and how they were going to get through.
00:00:39.000 And I completely understand it.
00:00:41.260 So the list that I have for you today, Corey, originally started at three.
00:00:47.000 Unfortunately, they all glom on together.
00:00:50.600 There's tentacles.
00:00:52.440 And of course, the economy, I think, was really out of the gate.
00:00:57.700 Where Canadians woke up interest rates fueled that crisis of confidence for Canadians.
00:01:06.140 And again, it was another, I think, a huge shock and became fear driven for many Canadians.
00:01:12.020 It still is.
00:01:13.220 But really what was underlying the inflation?
00:01:15.960 And yes, there's inflation in the G7, there's inflation everywhere.
00:01:19.580 It's hiding in every crevice and corner.
00:01:21.420 But we in Canada are doing particularly terrible with our economy.
00:01:28.180 Productivity slowed to a crawl.
00:01:31.640 We are now ranked, I think, 10th in the G7 or sorry, in the Western countries for our productivity.
00:01:41.020 We're on par with Greece and Turkey and other places.
00:01:45.020 But the U.S. continued to climb.
00:01:47.700 The problem when you have a slow productivity, you're going to see GDP per capita come to a grinding halt.
00:01:54.900 And a large part of getting GDP going and productivity going is foreign investment.
00:01:59.900 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.