Canada is on a dark path with a future that is bleaker and more depressing than most dystopian movies or novels, at least according to one report.

 

To make matters worse, this stark, despairing existence is predicted by our very own Canadian government.

 

And unless we change our ways, we have only 15 years before this miserable life is upon us.

 

What awaits us? A land divided between the haves and the have-nots; a nation where a university education and home ownership are only for the wealthy; a country with a mental health crisis; a state where people hunt and forage in order to feed themselves — a Canada at war with itself.

 

The somber warning comes from Policy Horizons Canada, an arm of the federal government that specifically looks at possible futures and gives advice to politicians.

 

“Our mandate is to help the Government of Canada develop future-oriented policy and programs that are more robust and resilient in the face of disruptive change on the horizon,” it says.

 

The January edition, titled 

Future Lives: Social mobility in question

notes, “Social mobility lies at the heart of the Canadian project. Many people in Canada assume that ‘following the rules’ and ‘doing the right things’ will lead to a better life. Anyone can get an education, work hard, buy property, and climb the social and economic ladder. This is an informal but powerful promise.”

A warning is then issued:

“However, things are changing.”

 

The report says wealth inequality is rising, children are less upwardly mobile than their parents and that downward social mobility may become the norm by 2040.

 

“While this is neither the desired nor the preferred future,” says the group, “it is plausible.”

 

The report then details some of the likely scenarios that could end the Canadian dream.

 

Under a headline “More snakes than ladders” it says, “In 2040, upward social mobility is almost unheard of in Canada. Hardly anyone believes that they can build a better life for themselves, or their children, through their own efforts. However, many worry about sliding down the social order.”

 

Post-secondary education is no longer a reliable path to upward mobility, says the group. “Tuition and housing costs exclude all but the wealthy.

 

“In 2040, owning a home is not a realistic goal for many.”

 

A section on intergenerational wealth says, “In 2040, people see inheritance as the only reliable way to get ahead. Society increasingly resembles an aristocracy. Wealth and status pass down the generations. Family background — especially owning property — divides the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’.”

 

The report goes on to expand on this division suggesting a society where everything is ruled and regulated by class, from romance to business. It envisages a society where people rarely mix with people of a different class.

 

In 2040, it says,

“

Algorithmic dating apps filter by class. Gated metaverses, like real life, offer few opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds. It is hard to move up in the world by making social connections that could lead to long term romantic relationships, job opportunities, or business partnerships.”

 

A worsening economy could lead people to struggle to afford rent, bills and groceries, a mental health crisis could develop. Other people, “may start to hunt, fish, and forage on public lands and waterways without reference to regulations. Small-scale agriculture could increase.”

 

In such a world, conflict in Canada is almost certain. The report says that the division between those who rent and those who own could “become a key driver of social, economic, and political conflict.”

 

People might blame the wealthy, the government, big companies, or immigrants.

 

“If such scapegoating becomes widespread, it could generate serious social or political conflicts.”

 

A wealthy business class and a poorer working class could drive people to trade unions, making them more powerful. “Job actions and strikes may disrupt economic development.”

 

“Social stagnation and downward mobility are plausible elements of the future,” says the conclusion to the report which warns that people may lose faith in “the Canadian project.”

 

Asked about the report on Tuesday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, said, “What they are anticipating on the current trajectory is a total meltdown, a societal breakdown in Canada.

 

“It’s hard to believe when you read these words that this is about Canada. This is exactly why I’m in politics to reverse this, to give people back the promise of this country.”

 

Like any report that aims to tell the future these things do not have to come to pass.

 

The key to restoring faith in the Canadian project is to restore the economy. It’s to make sure people can afford a home, buy groceries, pay the bills, and get a good job that pays a decent wage. It’s about investing in Canada and its people. It’s about making sure we don’t leave a younger generation weighed down with so much government debt that they can never shake it off.

 

That’s what this election is really about. It’s not about Donald Trump despite Prime Minister Mark Carney trying to scare people into believing that.

 

Canada doesn’t have to become a nightmare state. But if we want a better future we need to start building it now.

 

National Post

With just days to go before election day and millions of Canadians already having voted, both the Liberal and Conservative parties have finally dropped their full platforms. And the two are as different in substance, structure and style as the two campaigns — for better and worse.

 

Substance-wise, the Liberals offer a slew of big-ticket items: a $5 billion Trade Diversification Corridors Fund, billions for Arctic sovereignty, major housing and health infrastructure, and — refreshingly — a serious uptick in defence spending to exceed current NATO commitments. They also promise to drop the deficit in the “operating budget” to $220 million by 2028-2029 (more on that math later).

 

But how does this plan depart from ten years of Justin Trudeau’s largesse? Answer: it doesn’t. Liberal Leader Mark Carney proposes to drop $130 billion over four years, adding $225 billion to the federal debt. This isn’t a blue Liberal platform, or even purple: it’s fire engine red.

 

The Conservatives would spend $100 billion over the same period but also pledge to reduce the deficit “by 70%.” In other words,

they won’t balance the budget

either, but they stick to conventional accounting. 

 

To get there, the Tories would take a hatchet to a number of targets, including the CBC, bureaucracy, foreign aid to “hostile regimes,” AI initiatives, and “drug dens.” They also promise to “reduce external consultants” to 2015 levels to save an eye-popping $10 billion a year by 2028 — without any evidence for those numbers. 

Then there’s structure. Carney had already announced his intent to change the government’s budgeting process, splitting spending into “operations” and “capital investments” — a move designed to highlight long-term value from expenditures like infrastructure and military procurement. But this begs the question: what constitutes investments? Trevor Tombe, a professor at the University of Calgary

aptly described

this shift as applying “a comms strategy to formal fiscal policy.” Tombe and other economists have also raised concern that by abandoning the party’s previous commitment to reducing the federal debt-to-GDP ratio, the Liberals could risk losing Canada’s AAA credit rating.​ 

 

It’s on style, though, that the parties’ divergence is most glaring. The Liberal document is a 67-page

tome

that would make even a technocrat’s eyes glaze over: text and numbers only, dense, and laced with phrases like “nation-building infrastructure” and “protecting Canadian stories.” The Conservative platform, in contrast, is a glossy, slogan-packed, 30-page brochure peppered with flattering photos of leader Pierre Poilievre and wife Anaida on the campaign trail. But it also includes a balance sheet, absent from the Liberals’ plan, which requires the reader to run the numbers themselves.

The presentation embodies the underlying theme of this campaign: class polarization. The front-runners are speaking to two very different audiences. The Liberals are wooing older, wealthier, more educated voters with assets, who are terrified of Trump, and who might appreciate a textbook-style, big-vision platform, even if they don’t read it. The Conservatives are gunning for younger, struggling, less educated voters, who prefer their news in visual or simpler form and don’t trust elites, eggheads and funny accounting. 

 

If this sounds familiar, it should: this polarization mirrors the two-party set-up of the 2024 U.S. vote. Similarly, in our election,

eighty per cent of voters

are choosing one of two parties, which could sound the death-knell for smaller ones. 

 

But it is also a gamble: while the Liberals are banking on the boomer vote, some older voters may shiver at their big spending — and stay home. Polls show the Liberal vote

is less committed

than the Conservatives’, so the ground game could make a big difference. Assuming, of course, that with one week to go, voters haven’t already made up their minds.

 

Postmedia Network

Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.

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TOP STORY

At least 300 federal candidates, including 19 Liberals, have lent their names to an initiative bearing explicit links to one of Canada’s most radical anti-Israel groups.

As of press time, the website VotePalestine.ca lists more than 330 candidates who have expressed “full” endorsement of their “Palestine Platform.”

The platform calls on Canada to recognize Palestinian statehood without any caveat that Hamas be removed from power in Gaza.

It demands broad Government of Canada sanctions on anything connected to Israel, including “cultural and academic exchanges.”

It also calls on Canada to further increase foreign aid to UNRWA, a UN aid agency that has faced repeated scandals due to its links to Palestinian terrorism. As recently as August, the UNRWA fired nine employees for allegedly participating in the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.

VotePalestine is closely associated with Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), one of the central organizers of Canadian anti-Israel blockades and street demonstrations over the last 18 months.

PYM is also repeatedly recorded as having celebrated the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.

While the attack was still occurring, PYM organized “victory” rallies in multiple Canadian cities. “The resistance has set a new precedent for the Palestinian struggle,” reads a Facebook page organizing one such PYM event in Vancouver.

PYM is listed as an “initiating endorser” on VotePalestine.ca.

PYM and VotePalestine have organized joint events, such as an April 15 “Free Palestine National Day of Action.” They have issued joint social-media statements, such as a video recorded at a massive anti-Israel rally convened near Parliament Hill on April 12.

A PYM Facebook video even depicted its members handing out VotePalestine literature. “Make Palestine unavoidable this federal election,” reads a caption. “We are turning up the pressure and making it clear: Palestine must be at the forefront.”

PYM organizer Yara Shoufani also promoted VotePalestine in a recent appearance on the podcast Palestine Debrief. “For this election cycle, we’ve updated some of the demands in the platform,” she said, noting a similar VotePalestine campaign that occurred in 2021.

VotePalestine’s slate of supporters is primarily composed of candidates for the NDP and the Green Party, although more than a dozen Liberals have signed on, including several incumbents.

The sitting Liberals listed by VotePalestine include Patrick Weiler, Chris Bittle, Shafqat Ali, Alexandra Mendès, Sameer Zuberi, Sean Casey, Salma Zahid and Adam van Koeverden.

Zahid is the longtime chair of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, an organization that has repeatedly been accused of hosting extremists to Parliament Hill gatherings.

In 2022, one of their events featured Nazih Khatatba, the publisher of an Arabic-language newspaper that has referred to the Holocaust as a “hoax.”

That same event was also attended by Montreal activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose immediate reaction to the October 7 attacks would be to publicly declare his allegiance to Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif at an Ottawa rally.

Van Koeverden, the Liberal MP for Milton, has been particularly explicit about his intention to prioritize Palestinian issues if re-elected. In a mosque appearance earlier this month, van Koeverden accused Israel of committing genocide and pledged to “make sure that Palestinian voices are heard in Ottawa by our leaders.”

Not a single Conservative has signed on to the VotePalestine platform. And it contains just one candidate for the Bloc Québécois, Nabila Ben Youssef.

POLICY CORNER

The Easter weekend saw the Liberals drop their costed platform. Somewhat surprisingly, it contains even more deficit spending than under the prior targets set by Justin Trudeau.

If Trudeau had gotten his way, he would have run up $130 billion in new debt over the next four years. Under Mark Carney, the new plan is to raise that by $100 billion for a total of about $230 billion.

Bloomberg News, for one, did not hold back in what the plan held in store for Canada’s future. “Overall, the platform shows Canada’s fiscal position worsening if the Liberals are re-elected on April 28,” it concluded.

It’s also somewhat unexpected given that this entire election was sparked in part over concerns that Trudeau was spending too much. Chrystia Freeland resigned as deputy prime minister in December due to concerns that the government was failing to keep its “fiscal powder dry” in the face of trade war threats from the United States. Her resignation would set the events in motion for Trudeau to resign, Carney to replace him, and an April election to be called.

TURNOUT!

The 2025 election is already featuring a record-shattering level of voter turnout. Elections Canada has reported that an all-time high of two million voters turned out for the first day of advance voting on Saturday. As this newsletter has covered often, voter turnout is the variable to watch in this election. Many electoral projections are based on the 2021 and 2019 elections, both of which featured disproportionately low rates of voter turnout. If 2025 turns into a high-turnout election, it could easily turn a lot of those predictions on their heads.

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I have dedicated my life to serving and protecting Canadians. As a police officer, I dealt with many people battling addiction who desperately needed to get off the streets and into recovery. I also locked up drug traffickers who preyed on vulnerable people with addiction. As a military reservist, I proudly helped guard Canada’s border. As an elected official in recovery myself, I have been in the trenches for the past few years fighting back against radical NDP-Liberal drug and soft-on-crime policies that have fuelled addiction, death and crime. I have advanced recovery-focused policies, called for tougher sentences for drug traffickers and kingpins, and for solutions to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl into Canada. I feel qualified to speak on drug policy.

The rampant street disorder plaguing downtowns across the country, a catch-and-release justice system that has tipped the scales of justice in favour of violent repeat offenders, and an addiction crisis that claimed tens of thousands of lives didn’t appear overnight. It was created over the past decade by poor decision-making and liberal policies that handcuffed police, weakened our justice system, and normalized self-destructive behaviours.

Canada is in the midst of an addiction crisis that has killed 50,000 people in the past 10 years. My province of British Columbia has been the hardest hit. Instead of trying to get people the care they need, Premier David Eby and prime minister Justin Trudeau spent the past decade pushing a dangerous drug-liberalization agenda. They funded pro-drug legalization and anti-police activists and bureaucrats to do their bidding. Problems have gotten far worse. British Columbia has become a hub for drug production and misery. Canadians who think new Liberal Leader Mark Carney will do anything different are sadly mistaken. He doesn’t even think fentanyl is a crisis in Canada. No matter what he says on the campaign trail, we can expect more of the same.

In 2020, British Columbia scaled up so-called “safe supply” programs with funding from the Carney-Trudeau Liberals. These programs hand out bottles of heroin-strength opioids to people with addiction, arguing that it will prevent overdose deaths. It hasn’t worked. It was never going to work. The opposite. The taxpayer-funded opioids flooded the streets, enriching organized crime. After relentless pressure from me and the federal Conservatives, and a leaked BC Health Ministry memo in February showing the significant harm and fraud caused by “safe supply,”

the BC NDP announced

it would be moving to a witnessed dosing model.

In January 2023, B.C. launched a three-year drug-decriminalization pilot after receiving an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act by the Carney-Trudeau Liberals. This allowed drug users to use in playgrounds, on beaches, inside restaurants and other public places, and took away a vital policing tool to confiscate drugs and initiate drug investigations. B.C. went on to set a record with 2,511 drug overdoses deaths in 2023 — a staggering seven deaths per day. Again, after relentless pressure from me and the federal Conservatives,

B.C. changed course

in May 2024 by making it illegal to use drugs in public spaces. However, despite the obvious harms, the federal Liberal government allowed the decriminalization pilot to continue.

Fentanyl precursors come into Canada unabated through B.C.’s ports, where 99 per cent of shipping containers are uninspected.

Superlabs

in B.C. then manufacture the deadly fentanyl that is killing Canadians.

Drug traffickers far too often

are released on bail

and go back to dealing. Drug kingpins have walked away with no consequences.

Canada needs change. Pierre Poilievre is that change. His bold policies offer a clear path forward. His pledge to defund “safe supply” programs, end decriminalization and redirect money into

treatment and recovery

is exactly what Canada needs — a focus on healing, not enabling. His plan to sue opioid manufacturers and consulting companies who created this crisis in the first place is on the mark. His promise to impose mandatory sentences for drug traffickers and kingpins is the kind of tough-on-crime stance that can dismantle the drug networks that are poisoning our streets. His vision to put more boots on the ground and use sophisticated technology to stop fentanyl from coming into Canada in the first place will save many lives, putting Canada and Canadians first.

Special to National Post

Elenore Sturko is the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale. She is British Columbia’s Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Solicitor General and former Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Addiction and Recovery.

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Liberal Leader Mark Carney released his plan over the weekend to spend $130 billion over the next four years and rack up a deficit of $62 billion — and, because he calls it “investing,” he expects Canadians to trust it.

The Liberal leader’s big trick involves dividing his planned spending into “operating” and “capital” categories, just like an annual financial statement. The intent is to

emphasize

that he plans to dedicate the majority of his new spending to capital (such as infrastructure) rather than operating costs (which include services, staff salaries and other spending on non-physical things), hence the “spend less, invest more”

slogan

. The actual accounting behind Carney’s plans is fuzzy; on Monday, University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe

remarked

that “much of what the platform calls capital is probably just rebranded program spending.”

Capital or not, Carney’s plan to overspend is a bad idea: if you buy a mansion and strap yourself to a mortgage you can’t afford, you can be said to be investing in capital — but you might not ever pay it off, crushed under interest with no ability to buy decent furniture, clothes and food. Carney’s would do just that with an entire economy, rather than a household.

Carney’s “capital” budget would include $25 billion for prefabricated homes, $10 billion for building affordable housing,

unknown amounts

of funding for “clean energy and critical mineral projects,”

$5 billion

for Indigenous loans (bringing the total up to $10 billion),

$4 billion

for health-care renovation and new construction,

$1 billion

for startups,

$20 million

for classrooms to teach the trades and more.

When Carney rattles off these billion-dollar figures, Canadians must remember that the Brookfield business empire, which the Liberal leader has served as a board chair and fund manager, has placed big bets on both

prefabricated homes

and

green energy

.

As for non-development, Carney would spend

$250 million

on the conservation of new lands, and an

unknown amount

on a separate Indigenous-oriented conservation fund.

The rest of his planned spending can be largely characterized as high-cost and low-impact. A

grant

of $15,000 for “upskilling” mid-career workers in “manufacturing, health care, construction, AI and technology” appears to be a broad payout targeted to middle-aged voters — in particular, electoral fence-sitters who already have decent-paying jobs.

Another

$2 billion

would support Canadian manufacturing, along with

$200 million

in subsidies for food processing. The problem-ridden federal daycare program would be

kept

. The federal Court Challenges Program, which aggressively uses the court system to

advance

left-wing causes, would be

expanded

. Carney also

intends

to keep the Liberal gun buyback program that’s estimated to cost

$2 billion

, and devote

$150 million

more to the CBC.

As for the fisheries — which the Liberal government has choked off by cutting allowable catch, taking quota (sometimes

unlawfully

) from non-Indigenous fishers and giving it to their Indigenous counterparts, and

outright ignoring

unlawful fishing by Indigenous people and other black market activity — Carney’s

promising

a mere “$250 million in the repair and maintenance of small craft harbours.” (Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is

proposing

to add to this funding pool as well, but more importantly, he’d

restore

 law and order to the sector, and through it, the autonomy of fishers to run their businesses in peace.)

Meanwhile, Carney has promised copious amounts of tax credits and cuts in

mineral exploration

, manufacturing, carbon capture, electric vehicles, hydrogen, artificial intelligence and even

personal health care

. He also

plans on giving away

$5,000 to any Canadian buying electric vehicle chargers — a hint that government EV mandates are here to stay.

Carney and his supporters will point to these tax credits to demonstrate that he’s a “business Liberal” immune to the social justice distractions of Justin Trudeau, but the rest of his platform shows that he’s anything but. By all appearances, he’s planning to double down on Trudeau’s fanaticism: he’d

make

the $265-million federal

Black-only business fund

permanent; he’d

keep

the federal apprenticeship grants for employers which pay double if the apprentice hired isn’t white, able-bodied and/or male; he’d also

hang on

to the

$40 million

2SLGBTQI+ Community Capacity Fund, which in practice is merely extra funding for Liberal-aligned activism.

On the file of justice, he intends to spend more on non-citizens with a

promise

to “support legal aid for asylum seekers and refugees.” As for arts and culture, he’d increase funding for

Telefilm Canada

, the

Canada Media Fund

and the

National Film Board

, all of which have leaned heavily into advancing the left-wing ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Under Carney, the federal government’s obsession with DEI wouldn’t go anywhere: his platform mirrors the language of Trudeau’s heavy social justice agenda,

promising

to “(reshape) systems to better reflect and support all Canadians and make sure that no matter your heritage or identity you can fully participate in Canada” — and “create opportunities for Indigenous Peoples, Black Canadians, and racialized communities.” This is code for more social justice spending and more race-based hiring.

How will all of this be funded? With debt. Carney would

dole out

“transition bonds,” indebting the government to bondholders by “at least $10 billion per year” (the key term being “at least”). To dampen his projected blows to the economy, he’s suggesting a modest

$28 billion

in spending cuts — but these are undefined, supported by no actual plan. Sources of new revenue would be thin: they’d include a

carbon import tax

(i.e., a tariff), but these can’t possibly come close to covering Carney’s many new expenses. It would only be a matter of time before he restored the (currently

cancelled

) Liberal capital gains tax hike and contemplated

wealth

and

home-equity

taxes to slow the fall.

We’ve seen this before: in 2015, the Liberals released a platform that promised to spend (“invest”) $30 billion over three years, and run “a modest short-term deficit.” It only took a couple of years for the party, once in government, to

achieve

deficits more than twice the size of those promised. These have been maintained: in 2024, the deficit reached $62 billion. Tombe’s

analysis

of Carney’s figures wasn’t hopeful, concluding that “the government’s previous fiscal anchors — declining debt-to-GDP and deficits below 1 per cent of GDP — have now been clearly abandoned,” which could mean a future of heightened debt charges and reduced capacity to respond to economic shocks.

Back in January, the little-known government body named Policy Horizons Canada published an alarming

brief

, warning that “downward social mobility might become the norm” in Canada by 2040. Housing would be unattainable by all but a few; inheritance, not education, would determine one’s ability to get ahead; money might become so tight that people might turn to poaching to afford food. In this future, policymakers “may no longer be able to take for granted that people will be motivated to better their lot.”

“People may lose faith in the Canadian project,” concluded the brief.

That’s the path that Trudeau put Canada on. Now that Carney’s platform has been released, plans for gargantuan debts and all, it’s clear that he wants to keep us on this course. This would be a disaster, a dark reality of which even the federal government is aware.

National Post

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If there’s anyone other than U.S. President Donald Trump who can take credit for helping the Liberals try to hang onto power, it’s NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. After years protecting the Liberal government from falling in the House, Singh spent last week’s debates inexplicably assisting Liberal Leader Mark Carney, as Brian Lilley discusses with Tasha Kheiriddin and Stuart Thomson from the Political Hack newsletter. They consider whether Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s performance moved the needle enough to overtake this new Liberal-NDP alliance in the federal election, and the difference voter turnout will make. They also get into other interesting developments, from Poilievre’s advocacy for the notwithstanding clause to Carney’s curious defence of tax avoidance and the disgraced gun buyback. (Recorded April 18, 2025.)

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• NP View: Dear Liberal voters, here are some things worth considering