“Freeland promises to ‘unlock pathways’ to middle-class.” She says it like it’s a good thing.
But attaining “middle class” status isn’t good, it’s barely adequate. It’s like boasting, We’re number forty!
And the idea that the government has to intercede, somehow, to “help” Canadians achieve, well, mere averageness, is a pretty sad commentary about the new state of Canada — and it is a statement or sentiment or policy platform that is mired in ideological rot at its root. We call this ideological rot “progressive.”
I do not yet know what specific plans or government policies the Liberal Finance Minister Freeland plans on “unlocking” that are locked now (and BTW, by whom are these “pathways” locked right now, anyway? And why did they lock this pathway?); nor what it is she calls “pathways.”
Here’s a pathway she chose before:
But I can tell you that in The Beforetimes, like when I was young, people largely became “middle class” almost automatically. Just by not breaking any laws, by completing school, getting married and starting a family, and holding a decent job, you were practically guaranteed an average lifestyle. If you learned a few other trades or skills and worked really hard, and saved and invested your money, you could very well become wealthy. But “middle class” was the default position if you simply did the right basic things, provided an average dose of luck was on your side.
After all, we were a rich country. Richer than most.
But from The Beforetimes up to today, Canada has become a veritable welfare state, with so many programs and subsidies and grants and loans and aid programs and benefits and entitlements that ye olde Yellow Pages had fewer listings than today’s available welfare. I dare say most Canadians — families or businesses — rely on the government now. That “pathway” leads to ruin. We are on The Road to Serfdom.
Many couples — the decreasing number that even get married anymore — don’t even consider starting a family because it’s too expensive. Our birth rate is now below the replacement rate. And it’s now nigh impossible to get to the middling middle class. And that’s with fathers and mothers both working full-time and scrimping, usually renting because they can’t even remotely afford a house with a yard for the kids.
Whereas Canada was until recently “rich,” Canada has been shoved well off the list of “rich countries.” We’re barely “middle class” ourselves as a country now — if we aren’t actually “lower class.” Did you know most of Canada has an income level and standard of living just barely above the state of Kentucky in America? Kentucky is the state many arrogant bigoted Canadians sneering refer to jokingly because they think they’re poor, dumb, banjo-playing country bumpkins.
“Canada ranks just below Louisiana ($57,954) in average per-person income and slightly ahead of Kentucky ($54,671). This is not exactly the bar Canadians should be aiming for.” — 24 facts for 2024—Canadians should understand impact of government policies | Fraser Institute
As I’ve been saying, and as more qualified people (Fraser Institute and other think tanks, several bank studies, OECD reports, World Bank reports, media opinion reports like Andrew Coyne’s recent one at the Liberals’ Globe and Mail division from which I’ve borrowed a few quick stats here, and dozens more sources) have all been saying, Canada’s GDP per person is now so low that countries we formerly thought were “poor,” compared to us, are now way ahead of us. And America’s GDP per person has been growing as it has in other countries. In the chart below, look particularly at the year 2015 onward — when the Trudeau/Freeland Liberal/NDP cabal was first elected.
Canada’s per capita GDP is now below where it was in the fourth quarter of 2014. We’re going backward. Remember: Canadian taxes are higher than ever before, and the debt is the biggest it’s been in our history. And it’s getting worse. Not better.
In 1981, Canada ranked sixth among OECD countries in GDP per person, behind only Switzerland, Luxembourg, Norway, the United States and Denmark.
But we’re not sixth anymore. As of 2022 we were 15th (and we’ve gone down from 2022). In 2022 Iceland, Belgium, and Finland were all richer than us. (See Coyne)
What else has changed? Well, as I said, taxes are massively higher than ever before. Incomes are stagnant. Inflation now eats away at meager paycheque. Inflation today is unlike The Beforetimes when it could arguably be blamed on cyclical factors. Today it is the direct result of the government, and its aforementioned spending and welfare largess and ill-conceived lockdowns of the entire national economy during the flu they call “Covid-19” as directed by the Chinese Communist Party. Other factors are government-related too: the Bank of Canada for seeding uncontrolled spending with its low interest rate policy and lack of foresight. The villainization of businesses by government; the efforts to cancel the greatest sources of our wealth — oil and gas extraction and its global sale. Add to that a negative tax and regulatory environment for businesses, leading to record low investment in this country; and moreover, out-of-control immigration.
What else? Rules and regulations and red tape are more numerous and cumbersome than they have ever been. Government meddling and welfare addiction is now a predominant factor in so many facets of our family lives and business lives and every facet of the economy that we’re now more government than country. And the woke cult-like dictates like DEI and radical gender ideology and other such progressive-left fever dreams are literally dividing and arguably even wrecking the very fabric of our country.
Hope is thus diminished.
It has become nearly impossible to attain “middle-class” status because of the government. Because of this progressive government.
To progressives, attaining a middling “middle class” is the new “reaching for the stars.” Reach no higher. No further. Middle class is what we’ve decided is best for you, and what you’ll find at the end of the now rather grayscale rainbow.
So when the ever-so benevolent government pathfinder Christia Freeland starts talking — from on high — down to us plebians about creating — sorry, “unlocking” (again: why was it locked?) — a new official state “pathway” to achieve barely adequate survival in my country, I’m reminded of Ronald Regan who said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”
P.S. Late update:
Some additional resources concerning what led us down the current “pathway”:
24 facts for 2024—Canadians should understand impact of government policies | Fraser Institute
Canada’s uncompetitive business taxes threaten living standards – Business in Vancouver (biv.com)
Canada’s economy should worry all Canadians no matter their political stripe | Fraser Institute
Size of Canadian state is harming the economy | Wealth Professional
Canada’s economy is not booming—it’s stagnating | Fraser Institute
Fraser Institute sounds warning on government debt | CBC News
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