Freedom & Prosperity, Or Stagnation & Division?

What kind of country do we want to be?

By Spencer Fernando, Exclusive to the National Citizens Coalition

Justin Trudeau and the Liberals won a majority government in 2015.

Since then, they have won two more elections, despite losing the popular vote both times and being reduced to a minority government.

While Canadians denied the Liberals a majority government in the past two elections, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has given the Liberals a de-facto majority through the Liberal-NDP pact. 

At no point since becoming prime minister has Justin Trudeau shown any willingness to listen to the perspective of conservatives.

All of this is to say that after so many years in power, the Liberals – and their NDP partners – can’t blame the state of the country on anyone else. 

And this means that Canada’s economic underperformance and societal decline since 2015 is a direct result of Liberal policies. 

Of course, Liberal supporters would disagree with that.

As the Liberals often do, they will point to the fact that the world went through a massive crisis during the Covid pandemic, and they would note that other OECD countries have also struggled.

And that is indeed true.

Unfortunately for the Liberals, even when taking into account the challenges faced by comparable nations, something has gone uniquely wrong in Canada.

Consider this chart on capital spending per worker from TD Economics:

The complete break between the trend in Canada and the US coincides with Trudeau’s time in office.

When a government imposes a far-left eco-radical agenda on the country, this is what happens. 

And when we compare Canada’s post-pandemic performance to the average of advanced economies, we lag behind as well:

Canada is doing objectively worse than comparable nations. This isn’t an opinion. It is a fact.

So, it is simply inaccurate for Liberal supporters to claim that Canada is merely going through the same struggles as other countries.

Our underperformance is all the more appalling when you consider how well we should be doing. 

The world is begging for oil and gas from stable democratic states.

The U.S. economy has been growing rapidly – which normally lifts Canada’s economic fortunes. 

We also have a well-educated population, and the foundation for a strong tech sector, which should have us well positioned to prosper. 

Yet, we lag behind. 

The reality the Liberals are desperate to obscure is that we are being held back by a government that is hostile to all the big economic opportunities that we should be seizing on, and hostile to the kind of openness and freedom that is necessary for prosperity to grow. 

We already know the Liberals have sought to cripple the oil and gas sector, and rebuffed pleas by allies like Germany and Japan when they came here asking for LNG.

And the same anti-growth attitude has also been applied to the burgeoning independent media and content creation sector.

Through Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, the Liberals have sought to crush independent media and weaken popular content creators all to placate an anti-competitive lobby representing failing legacy media.

The Liberals have also been driven by their desire to control information and centralize state influence over the media and the internet, something that is inherently hostile to economic growth in today’s world. 

Keep in mind, we aren’t talking about narrowly targeted measures to address propaganda from hostile foreign states, we’re talking about the government trying to exercise control over the internet in a way that seems ‘inspired’ by Justin Trudeau’s favourite ‘basic dictatorship’ in China. 

Ironically, China’s desire for control over information and their increasing rejection of free market principles have smothered its burgeoning tech sector and has contributed to their current stagnation.

Why we would want to emulate that approach is beyond me.

Even more hypocritical is that at the very moment they are trying to control the content Canadians can consume, they are doing everything they can to avoid cracking down on hostile nations interfering in our democratic system.

The key point here is that Canada is being artificially restrained.

If people were just left alone, if the federal government stepped back from interfering on provincial jurisdiction, if they let independent media and content creators flourish without undue state interference, and if they cut taxes to let us keep more of our money, Canada’s economy would surge.

We are being held back by a bunch of incompetent power-hungry socialists like Trudeau, Singh, and Guilbeault.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We don’t have to be a divided and declining nation.

We can reclaim our freedoms.

We can reclaim our economic freedom, our freedom to keep what we earn and make our dreams come true.

We can reclaim our freedom to live our lives free of state interference.

We can reclaim the democratic institutions that safeguard our freedom, by finally ending interference from Communist China and other hostile states. 

And we can reclaim our freedom to reach our full potential as a nation, to be a land of opportunity, abundance, and hope, rather than a land of stagnation, privation, and division.

We can do all of that, if we stand together, fight for the truth, fight for the future of our nation, and fight to ensure the defeat of the Trudeau Liberals.

Spencer Fernando is one of the most popular and prolific political voices in Canada. He is a writer and campaign fellow for the National Citizens Coalition. Join the mailing list to receive his exclusive weekly columns in your inbox.

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