LIBERAL BUDGET 2024: Burning It Down On The Way Out

Socialist Liberals are determined to wreck what remains of Canadian productivity and innovation.

By Spencer Fernando, Exclusive to the National Citizens Coalition

If there was one overarching strength for the Liberal Party throughout Canada’s history, it was their ability to adapt.

When the country moved to the right, the Liberals could move to the right. When the country moved to the left, the Liberals could move to the left. 

For example, many forget how influential the Reform Party was when it came to providing both tangible ideas and political space for the Liberal government to cut spending and get Canada’s budget under control in the 1990s. 

Many old-school Liberals clearly defined themselves as the antithesis of political extremism and ‘revolutionary’ thinking, instead seeking to be moderate and competent administrators. 

But now, there’s nothing moderate, reasonable, or competent about the Liberals. 

In the same way he has ruined so much of what was once good about this country, Justin Trudeau has destroyed the political heritage he was handed when he became the leader of the Liberal Party.

The Liberals are now an extreme party, making common cause with the radical left NDP, appointing lunatics like Steven Guilbeault to positions of power, wrecking our foreign policy to pander to anti-Semites, spending us into the ground, and borrowing us into the poor house.

Not only has Justin Trudeau dispensed with the fiscal responsibility that once characterized some factions within the Liberal Party, he has also abandoned the duty to the country that once guided Canadian party leaders and prime ministers of the past regardless of political affiliation.

When we think back to Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and even Jack Layton, we get a sense that they all understood that Canada was bigger than themselves. Any amount of power or influence they held at the top of government or as a prominent party leader was temporary, and that power and influence should be used to better the nation, even when we disagreed on what bettering the nation entailed.

One of the most prominent examples of this is how Stephen Harper handled the budget ahead of the 2015 election. Rather than going on a massive borrowing binge and throwing money around in an attempt to stay in power, Harper continued Canada on the path to a balanced budget, even when that was likely to his political detriment. 

Harper handed Trudeau a Canada with a balanced budget, a solid economic foundation, an enviable immigration system, and a stable relationship between the federal government and the provinces.

Another way to put it is that Harper knew he wouldn’t be in power forever and that he had a duty to ensure his successor would inherit a strong nation. 

Justin Trudeau doesn’t think like that.

Instead, Trudeau clearly believes that he is the country, and the country is him. He makes no separation between his political interests and the interests of Canada. 

And so, as he faces terrible poll numbers, he is willing to burn the country down on his way out, in what appears to be a combination of desperate spending to try and stay in power in the short-term, and a desire to punish the nation in the long-term for daring to turn against him.

To get a sense of how bad the budget is, consider the main problems Canada faces.

The value of our money has been eroded, in large part because of rampant overspending. This – combined with insane immigration policies and anti-development ideology – has led to a massive shortage of housing.

We have a dearth of investment, lagging behind many peer nations.

The bureaucracy has grown massively since 2015, while service quality has eroded.

A larger and larger share of our economy is based on government spending, while private sector employment, and particularly self-employment, continues to fall as a percentage of total employment.

Our national debt has exploded in recent years.

The household debt of Canadians remains among the highest in the world.

Does the budget address any of these problems?

Nope.

Instead, it makes all of them worse.

The government is raising spending by almost 40 billion dollars which will further drive up inflation and erode our purchasing power.

The Liberal ‘housing program’ is a joke, given that housing starts are declining even as massive population increases continue to render housing unaffordable.

An increase in the capital gains tax will disincentivize investment, the exact opposite of what Canada needs.

The bureaucracy is going to keep on growing with the Liberals expanding the state in every way possible.

National debt charges are set to reach over $64 billion by 2029.

Canadians will continue to be squeezed as more of our money is eaten away by government spending-fuelled inflation, the carbon tax, and the overall decline in our standard of living.

All of this demonstrates the almost pathological inability of the Liberals to change course. There is no pragmatism left in that party. They are now fully hollowed out, nothing more than a vehicle for Justin Trudeau’s aggrandizement and power. 

The Trudeau personality cult has sacrificed every pillar of this nation to feed Trudeau’s ego and ‘reshape’ a country that did not need reshaping. 

And now that Canadians want to boot the Liberals out the door, they have decided to quadruple down on their economy-wrecking policies.

The Liberals have now ensured that the next government will inherit an absolute disaster. Quite deliberately, Trudeau and his ilk have set Canada on the path to long-term economic pain, declining global influence, rampant division, rising poverty, and generational conflict.

That means the task for those of us who love our nation has gotten much harder. We will have to work incredibly hard to bring our nation back from the brink, to turn the tide against destructive socialist economics, and to restore the promise and prosperity of Canada. And yet, we know that is work worth doing because unlike Justin Trudeau and his ‘burn it down on the way out’ attitude, we believe in doing what is right for Canada.

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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