HANNAFORD： A year later, Carney’s Canada is still sinking
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Summary
A year ago, we were promised recovery and resilience. Instead, we ve got flat per capita incomes, rising unemployment, and interest payments on federal debt that rival the cost of major programs. We ve also got a gaslighting problem.
Transcript
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good evening western standard viewers i'm nigel hanaford and this is a special edition of the
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hanaford show something i want to talk about one of the sins common to people like me whose job it
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is to read the nation's tea leaves and pass judgment upon what governments do is that we
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fail to give due allowance for circumstances beyond the actor's control. So while as a
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conservative it is easy for me to find fault with the Prime Minister's performance in his first year,
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fairness dictates that nobody could have predicted the tariff onslaught from the U.S. that has rippled
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through the Eastern Canadian economy, or the military action against Iran that has elevated
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gasoline prices nationwide. If Mr. Pollyer had won the last election, he would have faced the
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same demands to do something, anything. It is the somethings that Mr. Carney has done
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that are the problem. After almost 10 years of Mr. Carney's predecessor, Justin Trudeau,
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who did his best to make fiscal ignorance sound like a quality to aspire to,
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it is understandable that enough Canadians thought putting a banker in charge was the right thing to do.
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A central banker at that, in fact, twice a central banker.
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Yet, Canada's economy is limping into 2026 with the same old liberal hallmarks,
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massive borrowing, sluggish growth, and a debt burden that's growing faster than our paychecks.
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A year ago, we were promised recovery and resilience. Instead, we've got that flat per
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capita incomes, rising unemployment, and interest payments on federal debt that rival the cost of
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major programs. This isn't thriving. It's muddling through on borrowed time and borrowed money.
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This is actually transcribed from a press release from the Prime Minister's office
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as he opened the major projects office last July.
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He said there would be ports, railways, energy corridors,
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critical mineral developments, clean energy initiatives.
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There would be new markets, high-paying careers.
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heavens we would all be rich and our economy better connected whatever that means obviously
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none of that has happened and while in the continued interests of fairness we admit
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that it might take more than a year to get all this done nothing has even been announced as
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starting except some projects that were already 99 approved before the fanfare that launched the
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the major projects office. Ladies and gentlemen, what we have seen instead is our peripatetic
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prime minister visiting, on average, a country every two weeks, I gather, for a year, announce
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a memorandum of understanding that commits nobody to anything, and hurry home to make
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a spending announcement backed by more debt. Look, this is what a memorandum of understanding
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is like. It's like you meet another couple on a cruise, have a fabulous time for four days,
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and part declaring that, if you're ever in Houston, look us up. It's simultaneously sincere,
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a possibility, and highly unlikely. So, let's look at the numbers after a year of Mr. Carney's
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travels. Canada's real GDP growth clocked in at a meager 1.7% for calendar year 2025. That's the
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weakest since the pandemic year of 2020, during a time when the unexpert Mr. Trudeau was in charge.
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Then there was a contraction of 0.2% in the fourth quarter. Per capita gross domestic product
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has been essentially stagnant in multiple quarters,
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dragged down by weak exports and tepid business investment.
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Official forecasts for the current year hover around 1% to 1.2%,
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well below what economists hoped for even a year ago.
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Basically, folks, if you don't have 2% GDP growth per year,
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Meanwhile, they say inflation has cooled to an average of about 2.1% in 2025, with the consumer price index at roughly 1.8% year-over-year by early 2026.
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And that's progress of a sort from the post-pandemic spike.
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Well, there's a problem with the way they put these numbers together.
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the baskets these people use to come up with these reassuring numbers, including things you
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don't buy very often and the prices of which therefore hardly move. Look, my wife and I still
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use a color TV that we bought in 2010 for $1,000, brand new, and the equivalent thing can be had
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today from Amazon Prime. Take your pick in the $900 to $1,000 range. That is kind of how I
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would like inflation to be for everything. On the other hand, food prices and everyday costs,
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it's a different story, isn't it? That grocery bag you filled for $65 last year is likely to cost you
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closer to $75 this year, so you're paying a lot more than 2% inflation growth. That bites hard
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for families here in Calgary and across Alberta and across all of Canada.
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The Bank of Canada has managed to bring it near target, yet the gains feel hollow when
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wages aren't keeping pace and growth remains anemic.
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And that's where the labour market comes in and also tells us a tough story.
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Last week's jobless report must have hit you like an atom bomb.
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rose to 6.7 percent in february up from 6.5 percent the month before with employment dropping
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by 84 000 jobs that's bad enough but then there are some people who don't even look anymore and
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that's where the labor force participation number comes in and that has slipped to 65
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percent in the past year and so that what that means that 35 of the people out there are not
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jobless they're not even looking for work so what we're really saying is that even among the people
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who want to work the employment rate is going down in other words what we're seeing is softer
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engagement overall fewer people working fewer people looking for work even as headline job
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numbers fluctuate. No recovery here, my friends. Then there's government borrowing. A year ago,
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the federal government accumulated deficit was $1.2 trillion, equivalent to 41% of GDP. Add to
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that the last year's budgetary deficit of $78 billion, one of the largest non-pandemic shortfalls
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ever recorded. Public debt charges are forecast to reach $53 billion this year and climb further.
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Main estimates hit $487 billion for 2025-26, with deficits adding hundreds of billions over the
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medium term. This government boasts about the lowest net debt to GDP in the G7 on some measures,
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but that's cold comfort when interest costs are exploding and borrowing keeps piling up without
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delivering robust private sector momentum i had the privilege of working with somebody who knew
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better i'm going to compare this to the harper years of 2006 to 2015. stephen harper also came
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to office with a towering liberal mess in 2006 and instead of the tariff war with mr trump he
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He ran head-on into the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
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But policy matters, and Harper had a different way of doing things.
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That is, he was forced against his will to run deficits
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You know, the global crisis with gritted teeth and tears
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slash through spending restraint and public sector discipline. By 2014, the books were near
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balance with a projected surplus for 2015-16. Federal net debt to GDP fell to around 31%
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by 2014, one of the G7's lowest, after rising temporarily in the recession. I'll say it again,
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policy matters. Program spending growth was tightly controlled after 2010. Tax cuts like
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the GST stimulated the economy, and the focus was on private sector recovery and job creation
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in high-wage sectors. It was not on the atmosphere and carbon dioxide and seeing how we can get rid
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of the oil sands that produced so much of the wealth that made these outstanding numbers
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acceptable unemployment had trended down over time so it can be done and the contrast is stark harper
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didn't have president trump's tariff policies to contend with for or for president trump himself
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he'd have been stevie but for sure by the end of the first white house visit but stephen harper
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navigated the worst global downturn since the depression paid down debt precisely where possible
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possible and returned to surplus through deliberate restraint say it again policy matters mr carney
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has a different policy and his approach today is the opposite of stephen harper's persistent large
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deficits for social programs infrastructure and extended pandemic style spending even in normal
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times. The result, well, you see it, you're ballooning debt, interest that crowds out
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everything else, weak per capita growth, and an economy reliant on public borrowing rather than
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private investment. You can't borrow your way to prosperity. Actually, I think I might have
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written that once. Endless red ink mortgages future generations for today's political priorities.
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It crowds out productive investment, keeps taxes higher than necessary, and leaves less room for
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real emergencies. Harper proved you can balance the books without killing growth, through discipline,
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not denial. The current path proves the opposite. Spend like there's no tomorrow until, guess what,
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tomorrow arrives and brings with it the bill. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a time for a reset.
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spending restraint, balanced budget discipline, and pro-growth reforms, cutting red tape,
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incentivizing investment, and letting markets work. These are the only way forward. Harper
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knew this. Resource, wealth, and fiscal responsibility built our strength, not endless
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government expansion. Mr. Carney's policies have put us on a debt train. It's not jumping
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the tracks yet but i'm worried about whether it's actually going to go over the side of the bridge
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in the not too distant future we're not doing well and what we're doing we're doing on credit
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and the interest ladies and gentlemen is coming due