Canada’s populist moment did not come to pass — at least not yet.
Having deluded themselves into believing that the status quo is tenable, many on the left
the result of the recent federal election as proof that Canada could withstand the wave of anti-establishment politics that has swept the West in recent years.
The Trump trade war overtook the many other crises affecting Canada as one of the top election issues, but it did not extinguish them. If anything, Trump’s attempt to reshape the global economic order will only exacerbate the problems this country is facing. Canadian cities remain
and
with drugs and
, and the broken immigration system will not repair itself.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has portrayed himself as an agent of change. While he still deserves the benefit of the doubt, his new cabinet does not. The most glaring of these is Gregor Robertson, the former mayor of Vancouver and the new minister of housing.
In one of his first media appearances as minister, Robertson asserted that it is
to bring down house prices. Robertson’s words were in keeping with the Liberal government’s track record.
Ahmed Hussen, who served as housing minister from 2021 to 2023, infamously tried to explain the federal government’s at-best lackadaisical effort to address the cost of housing by asserting that “
” landlords would be at risk if home prices fell too drastically.
Following the Conservative party’s seizure of affordability as their key issue, the Liberals made a show of shuffling Hussen out of the housing portfolio and replacing him with Sean Fraser. Formerly the most incompetent and damaging immigration minister in living memory, the choice of Fraser spoke volumes about Hussen’s ability to run the file.
With Fraser in charge, the government made a series of
related to the housing supply, but to little avail. He, too,
that the government’s “goal is not to decrease the value” of homes.
This all occurred in 2023 when the Liberals began tanking in the polls. When Trump started rambling about annexing Canada and launching a trade war, the Liberals seized the opportunity. The American president was all they needed to activate their base and garner the support necessary to remain in office.
For millions of older voters, the Canadian election became an opportunity for them to stick it to Trump by voting for Carney, the guy they thought would put his elbows up and hopefully catch Trump on the nose. The Liberal party has evidently taken its victory as a validation of its decade in office, in which the country went into perceptible decline.
The Liberal vision of Canada’s social contract involves redistributing wealth to the top of the age pyramid. Whether it’s
, maintaining the exorbitant rent charged by “mom and pop” landlords or providing cheap labour to big businesses through
, the Liberal economic platform can only be described as “gerontocratic.”
As housing minister, Robertson has clearly embraced the Fraser-Hussen school of thought when it comes to prices and affordability. This is a serious mistake for any government. Generational inequality is at the heart of the populist movement in Canada — not convoys, bigotry or misinformation. It’s why young people and blue-collar workers
to the Conservatives in large numbers.
As long as young Canadians continue to feel their quality of life decline through
,
, restrictive housing supplies and
, they will become increasingly disillusioned.
Youth unemployment is the
it has been since 2012. In 2022, the number of Canadian-born people who left for the United States increased by
over pre-COVID levels. This is fuel for anger and populism, and it is justified.
Mark Carney still has a long way to go before the next federal election, which gives him a lot of time to set himself apart from the Trudeau government. Yet he will never accomplish this so long as his party continues to pander to the comfortable and the selfish.
Considering that the Liberals plan to allow in
a year by 2027, we should not expect demand for housing to slacken or for prices to meaningfully decrease. Crime, drug addiction and homelessness are still rampant, and the Liberals are unlikely to seriously address any of these issues.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government oversaw the great decline of Canada into a
, low-trust and hopeless society. Unless Carney has a plan to truly turn the page, his political ascension will only have deferred the Liberals’ day of reckoning.
The longer that Canada’s present condition persists, the more vicious and hard-line the blow-back will become. Establishment parties across Europe have
the hard way, with many right-wing populist parties having decimated their more moderate rivals.
Canada’s populist moment will come, either through a challenger to the status quo who embraces breaking down our sclerotic, parasitical economic model, or a government that beats them to it.
National Post
