Carney needs to drop Trudeau policies to boost Canada's economy...

On so many fronts, reversing course on Trudeau policy is the best way forward.

Canada’s economic growth has long lagged behind the United States, and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. In 2024, the World Bank pegged our GDP growth at 1.5%, compared to the United States at 2.8%.

Neither number is great, but the Americans are outpacing us.

The GDP per capita front, the Americans are well ahead at $85,809 per American compared to $54,282 per Canadian. Americans are getting richer; Canadians are standing still economically.

All of this impacts our lifestyle, our purchasing power and more.

Mark Carney was elected to lead the country in large part due to his business and banking background. Enough Canadians felt that he had the skill set to handle the Canadian economy, especially at a time of uncertainty due to Donald Trump’s tariffs and his desire to redesign the global trading order.

Turning Canada’s economy around is no small task and will require skill, effort, luck and adopting the right policies.

Too many people think politics and policies don’t matter in their daily lives. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

One bad policy from the CRTC, Canada’s broadcast and telecommunications regulator, cost more than 4,000 jobs and billions of dollars worth of investment. In fact, the money that would have been invested in Canada was instead invested in the United States.

I wrote about this in my latest column for the Toronto Sun.

The company in question that cut the jobs and moved investment money south is Bell Canada. The CRTC required them to open up their fibre internet network to their competitors at a wholesale price to allow other companies to compete on Bell’s network.

At that point, Bell decided there was no business case for installing expensive fibre optic lines if they had to turn them over to their competitors. That resulted in thousands of job losses and Bell deciding to buy a fibre company in the United States where they could actually afford a return on their investment.

That CRTC decision has been appealed to the federal cabinet.

If Mark Carney is serious about turning around Canada’s economy, he will reverse the CRTC decision. If he doesn’t he will be sending a horrible message to Canada’s business community about the direction his government will take.

On a positive note, in addition to announcing spending cuts for the upcoming federal budget, on Wednesday Carney announced red tape reduction.

“Canada’s new government has launched a review of federal regulations — to cut the red tape holding back our economy. It’s time to make government processes more effective so we can build the strongest economy in the G7,” the PM posted on social media.

That’s welcome news and sounds like something Pierre Poilievre would have done if he had been elected, something the Liberals would have been critical of or mocked.

It all takes us back to the dilemma Poilievre is facing and will further feed the griping I’ve been writing about.

Praising premiers a risky move...

Doug Ford takes a lot of flack for saying nice things about Liberals or being able to work with them, but that’s his job. As Premier of Ontario, Ford needs to work with other levels of government, and he’s made no secret that he will work with people of all political stripes including Justin Trudeau in the past and Mark Carney now.

That’s always upset a certain part of the Conservative base that would prefer to see him put Liberals in a headlock and given them noogies.

Well, what about Carney saying nice things not only about Ford, but also Albert Premier Danielle Smith.

It should be commonplace to PMs and Premiers to work together, to complement each other but we haven’t seen normal under 10 years of Trudeau.

Will Carney posting praise of Smith and Ford rub part of the Liberal base the wrong way?

Perhaps, but it is still good to see a PM trying to work with Ontario and Alberta rather than be at war with either province.

We should also all note that the above post is talking about expanding markets for Canada’s natural resources, a reversal of previous Trudeau policy.

Carney is driving up the cost of your morning coffee...

Have you noticed coffee prices are higher at your local supermarket lately? As the Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois points out in his latest Sun column, coffee prices are up 19% since the start of the year.

He points out that it’s not market volatility making coffee more expensive; it’s our trade and tariff policies.

Since March 3, Canadian importers have been paying an additional 25% tariff on imported coffee. This counter-tariff, introduced as part of Ottawa’s retaliatory measures during a trade dispute, directly affects a product Canada doesn’t even grow. Unlike dairy or poultry, coffee has no domestic farming sector to protect. These tariffs are not shielding Canadian farmers—they are punishing Canadian consumers and businesses.

Now, in fairness, this was a Trudeau policy that Carney has simply kept in place – but he should dump it.

That’s kind of a running theme, isn’t it, Carney should dump bad Trudeau policies. He’d make Canadians very happy if he did.