Two-in-one trouble

Watching this week’s Canadian election unfold is a bit like watching a nation under Divine judgment sleepwalking toward disaster. For a decade Canada has suffered economic vandalism from its own government and is on the verge of signing up for more of the same.

The litany of problems is long: 6.5 million people without a family doctor, depressing wait times for medical care, high taxes, declining productivity, sky-rocketing crime rates, Hamas supporters terrorizing Jews, and post-colonial theorists harping on how Canada is an illegitimate, genocidal, settler-colonial state. Maybe Canadians finally have internalized the message that the old, white Canada of European descent deserves to suffer. Maybe that is why voters appear to be on the verge of re-electing the Liberal Party led by Mark Carney.

Who is Mark Carney?

He seems to be two different people in one, a ruthless capitalist and a neo-Marxist eco-warrior wrapped up in one boring suit.

Every summary of his resume highlights the fact that he is an Oxford-educated economist who served as governor of the Bank of Canada and then of the Bank of England. It makes him seem like a moderate, fiscally responsible leader who will provide a steady hand on the tiller. But he is also the former UN Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, and a leading advocate for net-zero. In his book, Value(s), he says frankly that achieving net-zero requires leaving most of our fossil fuels in the ground and reducing the carbon footprint of citizens by 85%. This will keep the Canadian economy from growing enough to provide the public services to which Canadians have become accustomed. It is a recipe for economic stagnation and more poverty. But surely a highly educated banker would never let that happen? Right?

Canadians are about to find out.

Canada should be an energy superpower with a booming economy. If we built pipelines and slashed unnecessary regulations, we could be selling our oil and gas both in Asia and Europe, replacing their dependence on countries like Qatar and Putin’s Russia. But the Trudeau government has passed law after law designed to hinder energy development and now, to replace Trudeau, the Liberal Party has turned to someone even more determined to do the same.

Yet, paradoxically, Carney was chairman of Brookfield Asset Holdings before the election and under his watch the company moved its head office from Toronto to New York. Brookfield also evaded Canadian taxes by registering its head office in a bike shop (!) in Bermuda. Yet, he claims he is going to make corporations pay their “fair share” of taxes. When asked about this by reporters, he defended Brookfield as having followed the rules and he claimed that since Brookfield was investing pension fund assets it was really the teachers and other ordinary Canadians who benefited. This conveniently obscures the fact that he and the other owners of Brookfield were making big money from the investments by avoiding taxes.

So, is he the ruthless capitalist intent on evading taxes and maximizing profits? Or is he the neo-Marxist environmentalist out to save the planet from capitalism?

He is both.

The other day he announced his housing plan. With gigantic immigration numbers over the past few years, coupled with tangled bureaucracy and over-regulation, Canada now has a housing crisis. We probably have more land, lumber, and skilled tradesmen available than any other country in the world, yet we struggle to build enough houses. Developers are ready, willing, and able, but government regulations stand in the way.

So, what is Carney’s plan? He proposes a new federal entity to be called “Build Canada Homes,” which he says will be a “lean, mission-driven organization.” Of course it will. Everybody knows that compared to, say, Amazon, the government is incredibly efficient and virtually mistake-free.

So how will this amazing plan work? BCH will supply $25 billion in debt financing and $1 billion in equity financing to “innovative Canadian prefabricated home builders.” A Liberal Party backgrounder explained that BCH will also issue bulk orders of housing units from Canadian modular and prefabricated home builders in order “to create sustained demand.”

In other words, the federal government will throw billions of borrowed dollars at the problem to create temporary, artificial demand for cheap, prefabricated houses no one will want to live in. Carney has never met a problem he didn’t think could be solved by throwing around taxpayers’ money. The solution is always “more government.”

I predict he will be a prime minister with the resume of a banker who governs like a Bolshevik. Of course, his party is expected to win the election.

Canada is in big trouble.