On March 25, Prime Minister Mark Carney claimed that “affordability is the best that it’s been in over a decade.” Unfortunately, Carney’s claims are simply untrue and merely another aspect of the Potemkin nation that Carney and his Liberal government have sought to substitute for Canadian society. In fact, although Carney long ago promised to restore a meaningful ‘quality of life’ in Canada and “build the fastest growing economy in the G7,” it is clear that Canada’s economy has only continued to implode under the auspices of Carney’s regime and the Liberal government.Firstly, Canadians have remained personally impoverished and unemployed.For example, Canada’s unemployment rate has now skyrocketed to a “nine-year high” and youth unemployment has hit levels typically “seen during a recession,” as a result of the Liberal government’s economic ‘initiatives’ and abject obsession with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFW). Furthermore, the renowned Study of the Canadian Consumer recently revealed that “Nearly half of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque” and that “a growing number of Canadians say they’re barely staying afloat.”.In addition, over 25% of all Canadians currently suffer from food insecurity, and child poverty has risen spectacularly “for [the] third straight year in Canada.” In fact, the most recent Child and Family Poverty Report Card has been forced to concede that “progress toward eliminating child poverty is not only stalling but reversing … it would take nearly 400 years to end child poverty in the country.”Moreover, affordability has become an urgent issue in Canada and now threatens the ‘life chances’ of every Canadian.For instance, the cost of living has skyrocketed, and the cost of food and groceries has increased dramatically throughout Canada over the past year. In fact, over the course of the past year alone, “Food prices in Canada rose 6.2%” and Canada “now sits at the top of the G7 for food inflation” as a consequence of its severe “policy-driven food inflation problem.” In addition, since 2019, food bank usage in Canada has increased by nearly 100%. Worse still, 33% of “food bank clients” in Canada are now children. Furthermore, homeownership has become a brutal non-reality for every Canadian and a figment of Canada’s collective psyche. Even the Bank of Canada’s Senior Deputy Governor, Carolyn Rogers, has herself recently reiterated that Canada desperately “need[s] house prices to come down, so that housing is more affordable.” In fact, according to the Fraser Institute, “Affordable housing [is] out of reach everywhere in Canada” and “typical homes on the market [are] unaffordable for families earning the local median income in every major Canadian city. It’s not just Vancouver and Toronto — housing affordability has eroded nationwide.”Finally, the national economy of the Canadian state has itself collapsed..For example, Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita has crumbled, as a consequence of the Liberal government’s vain efforts to “[rely] on immigration to drive economic growth and plug labour gaps.” In fact, a slew of respected economic indicators and organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have all confirmed that Canada will actually demonstrate “the single worst performing economy of all 38 OECD members” until 2060. Furthermore, Canada’s economic woes have only intensified, and various datasets have reiterated that “Canada’s economic outlook has worsened more than any of its peers over the past year” and that “Canada’s economy is falling behind our OECD peers.” Even the Fraser Institute itself has reaffirmed that “Weak economic growth combined with a fast-growing population over the last several years have resulted in Canadians experiencing a marked and prolonged decrease in living standards” and that Canadians are currently being forced to endure “the longest decline in individual living standards of the last 40 years.” Unfortunately, although Carney has glibly claimed that “affordability is the best that it’s been in over a decade,” it is evident that affordable goods and services are simply not a feature at Carney’s Canadian Freakshow. Contrary to Carney’s prior assurances of restoring a meaningful ‘quality of life’ in Canada and “building the fastest-growing economy in the G7,” it is evident that Canada’s economy has only continued to deteriorate under Carney’s administration and the Liberal government.More importantly, if Canada’s Liberal era is not soon interrupted, it is readily apparent that the Carney government will inevitably abort the ‘life chances’ of Canadians entirely and render a viable future naught but a distant, bitter memory in the North.William Barclay is an award-winning political theorist and policy expert, as well as one of Canada’s leading conservative voices. Follow him on Twitter/X @WillBarclayPCBG.
