So let me get this straight...
Canada is in a recession—the only G7 country currently in one. Unemployment is up. Inflation is rising. Food insecurity is at a record high.
Yet the highest proportion of Canadians since 2017 now say the country is on the right track.
That's either a remarkable display of optimism—or a sign that many Canadians aren't getting the full economic story from the news they consume.
A Decade Plus One of Decline
Canada did not arrive here by accident. This was not bad luck, bad weather, or some mysterious global fog that drifted over Ottawa.
It was policy.
For ten years, Justin Trudeau’s government made Canada more expensive, more divided, more regulated, and harder to invest in. Now Mark Carney wants Canadians to believe he is the repair crew. Nice trick. He was not standing outside the building with a fire extinguisher. He was part of the economic brain trust while the place was filling with smoke.
Carney served as an adviser to Trudeau during the COVID economic response and later chaired the Liberal Party’s economic growth task force. So when he talks like the adult has finally entered the room, Canadians are allowed to ask the obvious question: where exactly were you while the room was being trashed?
Canada has spent a decade punishing the very things that create prosperity: energy, investment, productivity, construction, and risk-taking. Then Ottawa acts shocked when investors look elsewhere. That is like locking the grocery store, chasing away the suppliers, and then giving a speech about food security.
The Net Zero obsession made it worse. Instead of building affordable energy and reliable infrastructure, the political class wrapped economic pain in moral language. Higher costs became “transition.” Lost investment became “leadership.” Regional alienation became “climate ambition.” Wonderful. A thesaurus with a carbon tax.
Now Carney talks about trade corridors, ports, pipelines, clean energy, and national unity. Fine. Canada needs all of that. But he cannot credibly sell himself as the cure for a disease he helped normalize.
A decade plus one of decline has taught Canadians a hard lesson: slogans do not build houses, carbon markets do not fill fridges, and lectures from global elites do not create paycheques.
Canada does not need managed decline with better lighting.
It needs a government that gets out of the way and lets the country work again.