To Prosper, Canada Must Move Beyond ‘Zero-Sum’ Thinking And Embrace Our Unlimited Potential As A Country

By Spencer Fernando

Following World War Two, Canada was one of the freest and wealthiest nations in the world.

With much of Europe and Asia in ruins and thus focused on rebuilding, Canada and our allies helped to usher in a new era of more open world trade and cooperation between nations, rather than seeking to take advantage of those who were weak.

This helped lead to an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity.

Of course the post WW2 era of abundance seems inevitable in retrospect, but it took very deliberate choices to make it possible. Free nations explicitly rejected zero-sum thinking, and instead chose to believe that we could achieve more by working cooperatively with other nations for mutual benefit.

Unfortunately, the lessons we learned at great cost following WW2 are being rapidly unlearned.

Zero-sum thinking is back with a vengeance.

This is most notable in our neighbours to the south, with a U.S. President pushing for unjustified tariffs on Canada and endlessly repeating false statements that the U.S. trade deficit with our country is somehow a ‘subsidy.’

Despite the fact that the United States benefits from getting Canadian energy at “enormous discounts” as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre put it, Donald Trump incorrectly believes the U.S. is being taken advantage of by Canada.

This zero-sum approach from our southern neighbours is already having serious economic consequences, consequences that are likely to escalate in the coming weeks and months as more and more tariffs are imposed.

In response to this, it would be easy for Canada to turtle up and embrace zero-sum thinking of our own.

But that would be a mistake.

In fact, it’s a mistake we’ve been making for a while now.

While it has often been dressed up in the label of ‘environmentalism,’ much of the hostility to the oil and gas sector has been rooted in a zero-sum mindset that sees a binary choice between protecting the environment and developing our natural resources.

That kind of thinking is misguided, given that stronger Canadian oil and gas exports would help displace coal production and thus reduce overall global emissions. Unfortunately, many defenders of the restrictive ‘net zero’ approach are as unwilling to listen to reason as defenders of Trump’s tariffs.

And both the environmentalist zero-sum thinkers and the tariff-obsessed zero-sum thinkers embrace a deep pessimism about the future rather than a sense of hope.

To think you can only survive by shutting down key industries or that you can only prosper by taking advantage of others represents a very closed-off view of human nature and human potential.

It would be a tragedy if Canada went further down this zero-sum path.

While we absolutely must impose counter-tariffs on the U.S. to show that will never allow ourselves to be pushed around and will never give up our sovereignty, in our dealings with other nations – and our dealings within our own borders – we should return to the pro-energy and pro-trade policies that helped build up our country.

In short, we should embrace an abundance agenda.

An abundance agenda is about believing that the future should be – and can be – better than the past and better than the present.

Instead of closing off our opportunities, we make the most of them.

Instead of leaving resources in the ground, we utilize them to make life more affordable, build needed infrastructure, strengthen our national defence, and fund an education system to prepare young Canadians for maximum success in an increasingly complex and rapidly-changing economy.

It means trading more – not less – with friendly nations who stick to their trade agreements, and it means breaking down the absurd interprovincial trade barriers that have held us back for decades.

Thankfully, it appears this message is getting through.

While the desperation that comes with elections often brings out the worst in people, Canada’s impending election is also bringing out the best in terms of ideas for building up our country in a way that embraces abundance rather than zero-sum thinking.

For example, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre recently announced a plan for “Shovel-Ready Zones” where “mines, data centres, pipelines, LNG plants and more” would be pre-approved.

Those zones would attract investment and ambitious Canadian businesses willing to build Canada’s long-term prosperity – in effect an expression of hope and belief in Canada’s sovereignty.

That kind of pro-abundance thinking would also send a strong message to our allies around the world, as they would see Canada investing in the production of resources that would bring greater prosperity through trade and mutual cooperation, incentivizing them to see our nation as a valuable and reliable partner.

Despite severe external threats, a prosperous, peaceful, and abundant future can still be ours if we have the courage to reject zero-sum thinking and instead embrace our unlimited potential as Canadians.

For more from Spencer, visit his website, or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.