Despite Trudeau Liberals’ fervent protestations otherwise, Canadians are undergoing one of the “steepest and longest declines” of wealth in the history of the country. Living standards are calculated by assessing changing GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per person. The higher the GDP, the higher the living standard. In Canada and other top 50 countries, GDP has generally been on the incline over the last 100-year period. However, a report released Thursday by the Fraser Institute shows from April 2019 to December 2023 living standards dropped 3%, in what the institute calls the “third-steepest decline in almost 40 years.”Adjusted for inflation and pulled from a “broad measure of living standards,” per-person GDP in Canada fell from $59,905 annually to $58,111. By contrast, Canadians from 1989 to 1992 experienced only a 5.3% drop , and from 2008 to 2009 5.2%.Statistics Canada earlier reported the nation is suffering a worse income decline per person than any other G7 nation — contrary to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s tendency to insist Canada outshines its G7 counterparts in boasting a “AAA credit rating.” In her 2022 budget, Freeland lamented low productivity and innovation is “the Achilles heel of the Canadian economy.”“We are falling behind when it comes to economic productivity,” Freeland said.“Productivity matters because it is what guarantees the dream of every parent — that our children will be more prosperous than we are. This is a well-known Canadian problem—and an insidious one. It is time for Canada to tackle it.”Meanwhile per capita GDP in the United States has grown by more than 8% since 2019. The margin between the US and Canada’s GDPs is wider than it has been since 1965.“Despite claims to the contrary, living standards are declining in Canada,” Fraser Institute study co-author Grady Munro said. Researchers state the decline is already the “second-longest in almost 40 years, surpassed only by one that lasted 21 fiscal quarters from1989 to 1994,”“If not stabilized in 2024, this decline could be the steepest and longest in four decades,” wrote researchers. “The severity of the decline in living standards should be a wakeup call to policymakers across Canada to immediately enact fundamental policy reforms to help spur economic growth and productivity,” said study co-author Jason Clemens.The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) said in a statement following the study, “after nine years of Justin Trudeau, Canadians are seeing one of the steepest and longest falls of living standards in the history of the country.”Trudeau’s “policies have driven out investment, weakened workers' paycheques and increased the cost of living for every Canadian. They are why we are in a productivity crisis,” wrote Conservatives. “Had they held the same trend line that the former Conservative government left them on, Canadians would be $4,200 richer. Instead, we are in an affordability crisis, a productivity crisis, and at risk of a debt crisis.”
