24 facts for 2024—Canadians should understand impact of government policies

With a better understanding of the impact of government policies, Canadians will be better able to hold politicians accountable and make informed decisions at the ballot box. With the calendar now turned to 2024, here are 24 facts for Canadians to consider.

Canada’s Economic Crisis

Average per-person incomes in Canada have stagnated from 2016 ($54,154) to 2022 ($55,863). Meanwhile, the United States has seen an increase from $65,792 to $73,565. The average Canadian now earns $17,700 less annually than the average American.
Canada ranks just below Louisiana ($57,954) in average per-person income and slightly ahead Kentucky ($54,671). Is this the company we want to keep?
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada will be the worst-performing advanced economy from 2020 to 2030 and from 2030 to 2060.
Canada’s economic growth crisis is due in large part to the decline in business investment. Business investment per worker in Canada declined by 20 per cent since 2014, from $18,363 to $14,687.
In 2014, Canada invested about 79 cents per worker for every dollar invested in the United States—in 2021, investment was 55 cents for every U.S. dollar.
We’ve witnessed a massive flight of capital from Canada since 2014, to the tune of more than $285 billion.
From the onset of the COVID recession in February 2020 to June 2023, the number of government jobs across the country increased by 11.8 per cent compared to only 3.3 per cent in the private sector (including the self-employed).

Fiscal Crisis: Imprudent Spending and Massive Deficits

The Trudeau government has increased annual spending (not including interest payments on its debt) by nearly 75 per cent since 2014, from $256 billion in 2014-15 to a projected $453 billion in 2023-24.
With federal spending at nearly $11,500 per Canadian, the Trudeau government is on track to record the five highest levels of per-person spending in Canadian history.
A large portion of government spending in Canada goes to pay for the 4.1 million federal, provincial and local government employees. Government employees across Canada—including federal, provincial and municipal workers—are paid 31.3 per cent higher wages (on average) than workers in the private sector. Even after adjusting for differences (education, tenure, type of work, occupation, etc.) government employees are still paid 8.5 per cent higher wages.
The Trudeau government has used large increases in borrowing and tax increases to finance this spending. Federal debt has ballooned to $1.9 trillion (2022-23) will reach a projected $2.4 trillion by 2027/28.
Combined federal and provincial debt in Canada has nearly doubled from $1.18 trillion in 2007/08 (the year before the last recession) to a projected $2.18 trillion this year.

Tax Increases and Canada’s Affordability Crisis

To pay for all this spending, the total tax bill for the average Canadian family was $48,199 or 45.3 per cent per cent of its income—more than what the average family spends on housing, food and clothing combined.
Housing and grocery costs dominated the news last year but in 2022 the average family spent $1,452 more on housing and $996 more on food while governments extracted an extra $4,566 from the average family in taxes.
While the federal government has claimed it “cut taxes for middle-class Canadians everywhere,” in reality 86 per cent of middle-class families in Canada are paying higher income taxes under the government’s personal income tax changes. And that doesn’t account for carbon taxes, etc.
More than 60 per cent of lower-income families (those in the bottom 20 per cent of earners) in Canada now pay higher federal income taxes because of the federal government’s tax changes.
Seventy-four per cent of Canadians surveyed believe the average family is being overtaxed by the federal, provincial and local governments.

Damaging Energy and Environment Policy

In the federal government, there’s a common belief that the Canadian economy is undergoing a fundamental and rapid transition towards “clean/green” industries. Yet despite massive regulations and subsidies, Statistics Canada data shows that Canada’s “green” economy amounts to only about 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and directly employs roughly 1.6 per cent of all jobs.
The recent United Nations climate change conference pushed for a “transition away from fossil fuels.” Despite significant spending on “clean energy”, from 1995 to 2022, the amount of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) consumed worldwide actually increased by nearly 59 per cent.
Canada has an opportunity to serve the world with its energy and resources and, in doing so, benefit our allies and improve both world energy security and the environment. But the federal government doesn’t see it that way. How else could one explain the latest singling out of Canada’s oil and gas sector through an arbitrary cap on greenhouse gas emissions, even though the sector only represents 26 per cent of Canada’s total GHG emissions? Even if Canada eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions expected from the oil and gas sector in 2030, the reduction would equal only 0.004 per cent of global emissions while imposing huge costs.
As a result of new federal energy efficiency regulations, the cost of a newly constructed home in Canada will increase by $55,000, on average, by 2030 because of the federal government’s stricter energy efficiency regulations for buildings. Rather than increasing the costs of new homes, governments should help close the gap between supply and demand.

Our Failing Health-Care System

How good is our health-care system? Canada’s average health-care wait times hit 27.7 weeks in 2023—the longest ever recorded and nearly 200 per cent longer than the 9.3 weeks in 1993 when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times.
Among a group of 30 high-income countries that have universally accessible health care, Canada spends the most money on health care as a percentage of GDP.
Despite this high spending, we are a poor performer. Among this group, Canada had the longest wait lists and ranked:
- 28th (out of 30) for the number of doctors
- 23rd (out of 29) for the number of hospital beds available
- 23rd (out of 29) for the number of psychiatric beds available
- 25th (out of 29) for the number of MRI machines
- 26th (out of 30) for CT scanners

Author:

Niels Veldhuis

Related Topics:#24FactsFor2024 #CanadaEconomicCrisis #FraserInstitute #NielsVeldhuis

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Bank of Canada Cuts Rates to 2.25%, Warns of Structural Economic Damage

Published on October 29, 2025

Todayville

Dan Knight

Governor Tiff Macklem concedes the downturn runs deeper than a business cycle, citing trade wars, weak investment, and fading population growth as permanent drags on Canada’s economy.

In an extraordinary press conference on October 29th, 2025, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem stood before reporters in Ottawa and calmly described what most Canadians have already been feeling for months: the economy is unraveling. But don’t expect him to say it in plain language. The central bank’s message was buried beneath bureaucratic doublespeak, carefully manicured forecasts, and bilingual spin. Strip that all away, and here’s what’s really going on: the Canadian economy has been gutted by a combination of political mismanagement, trade dependence, and a collapsing growth model based on mass immigration. The central bank knows it. The data proves it. And yet no one dares to say the quiet part out loud.

Start with the headline: the Bank of Canada cut interest rates by 25 basis points, bringing the policy rate down to 2.25%, its second consecutive cut and part of a 100 basis point easing campaign this year. That alone should tell you something is wrong. You don’t slash rates in a healthy economy. You do it when there’s pain. And there is. Canada’s GDP contracted by 1.6% in the second quarter of 2025. Exports are collapsing, investment is weak, and the unemployment rate is stuck at 7.1%, the highest non-pandemic level since 2016.

Macklem admitted it: “This is more than a cyclical downturn. It’s a structural adjustment. The U.S. trade conflict has diminished Canada’s economic prospects. The structural damage caused by tariffs is reducing the productive capacity of the economy.” That’s not just spin—that’s an admission of failure. A major trading nation like Canada has built its economic engine around exports, and now, thanks to years of reckless dependence on U.S. markets and zero effort to diversify, it’s all coming apart.

And don’t miss the implications of that phrase “structural adjustment.” It means the damage is permanent. Not temporary. Not fixable with a couple of rate cuts. Permanent. In fact, the Bank’s own Monetary Policy Report says that by the end of 2026, GDP will be 1.5% lower than it was forecast back in January. Half of that hit comes from a loss in potential output. The other half is just plain weak demand. And the reason that demand is weak? Because the federal government is finally dialing back the immigration faucet it’s been using for years to artificially inflate GDP growth.

The Bank doesn’t call it “propping up” GDP. But the facts are unavoidable. In its MPR, the Bank explicitly ties the coming consumption slowdown to a sharp drop in population growth: “Population growth is a key factor behind this expected slowdown, driven by government policies designed to reduce the inflow of newcomers. Population growth is assumed to slow to average 0.5% over 2026 and 2027.” That’s down from 3.3% just a year ago. So what was driving GDP all this time? People. Not productivity. Not innovation. Not exports. People.

And now that the government has finally acknowledged the political backlash of dumping half a million new residents a year into an overstretched housing market, the so-called “growth” is vanishing. It wasn’t real. It was demographic window dressing. Macklem admitted as much during the press conference when he said: “If you’ve got fewer new consumers in the economy, you’re going to get less consumption growth.” That’s about as close as a central banker gets to saying: we were faking it.

And yet despite all of this, the Bank still clings to its bureaucratic playbook. When asked whether Canada is heading into a recession, Macklem hedged: “Our outlook has growth resuming… but we expect that growth to be very modest… We could get two negative quarters. That’s not our forecast, but we can’t rule it out.” Translation: It’s already here, but we’re not going to admit it until StatsCan confirms it six months late.

Worse still, when reporters pressed him on what could lift the economy out of the ditch, he passed the buck. “Monetary policy can’t undo the damage caused by tariffs. It can’t target the hard-hit sectors. It can’t find new markets for companies. It can’t reconfigure supply chains.” So what can it do? “Mitigate spillovers,” Macklem says. That’s central banker code for “stand back and pray.”

So where’s the recovery supposed to come from? The Bank pins its hopes on a moderate rebound in exports, a bit of resilience in household consumption, and “ongoing government spending.” There it is. More public sector lifelines. More debt. More Ottawa Band-Aids.

And looming behind all of this is the elephant in the room: U.S. trade policy. The Bank explicitly warns that the situation could worsen depending on the outcome of next year’s U.S. election. The MPR highlights that tariffs are already cutting into Canadian income, raising business costs, and eliminating entire trade-dependent sectors. Governor Macklem put it plainly: “Unless something else changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would have been.”

Canadians should be furious. For years, we were told everything was fine. That our economy was “resilient.” That inflation was “transitory.” That population growth would solve all our problems. Now we’re being told the economy is structurally impaired, trade-dependent to a fault, and stuck with weak per-capita growth, high unemployment, and sticky core inflation between 2.5–3%. And the people responsible for this mess? They’ve either resigned (Trudeau), failed upward (Carney), or still refuse to admit they spent a decade selling us a fantasy.

This isn’t just bad economics. It’s political malpractice.

Canada isn’t failing because of interest rates or some mysterious global volatility. It’s failing because of deliberate choices—trade dependence, mass immigration without infrastructure, and a refusal to confront reality. The central bank sees the iceberg. They’re easing the throttle. But the ship has already taken on water. And no one at the helm seems willing to turn the wheel.

So here’s the truth: The Bank of Canada just rang the alarm bell. Quietly. Cautiously. But clearly. The illusion is over. The fake growth era is ending. And the reckoning has begun.

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Business

Canada heading into economic turbulence: The USMCA is finished and Canadian elbows may have started the real fight

Published on October 29, 2025

Duane Rolheiser

To the average Canadian onlooker the public perception used to be that President Trump and Prime Minister Carney were getting along fabulously. All seemed to get off on the right foot with Carney and Trump. Carney giggled whenever President Trump tickled him and Canadians rested well, self-assured that Trump would completely forget about Canada the moment Carney left the room.

Unfortunately for Canadians and surprisingly to most of us, the PDA’s were only for show.

Maybe it’s the timing of Trump’s trip to ASEAN and the US trade discussions with China. Maybe it’s Trump’s reaction to Ontario’s (perhaps with the approval of Mark Carney) $75 Million taxpayer dollar attempt to upend President Trump’s entire economic strategy.

In the end it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it appears Trump has duly received a high elbow in the corner from Premier Ford and / or Prime Minister Carney. Then, President Trump did what the producers of Canada’s most famous election ads failed to consider due to their obvious lack of ever actually having played hockey… Trump appears to have dropped his gloves and is reaching for a Red and White sweater to pull over our heads so we can’t control our arms or see what happens next.

So are we about to get pummeled? Who knows. We are a feisty little country. We used to hit well above our weight. But if we can keep with hockey analogies for a moment, it’s like Canada has begun the second period with a 2-0 lead. Hockey people know what that can mean. (Hint: It’s not elbows up).

Here’s a take from hockey… er political analysts TheLastRefuge. If you take a few minutes to read this Canada’s economic and trade situation is going to make a lot more sense. Spoiler alert: It won’t make you happy.

From the X account of TheLastRefuge

@TheLastRefuge2

The Last Refuge is a rag tag bunch of misfits that do not align with political specificity. We share information, seek known truths and discuss.

During the 2016 election President Trump repeatedly said he wanted to renegotiate NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Both Canada and Mexico were reluctant to open the trade agreement to revision, but ultimately President Trump had the authority and support from an election victory to do exactly that.

In order to understand the issue, you must remember President Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer each agreed the NAFTA agreement was fraught with problems and was best addressed by scrapping it and creating two seperate bilateral trade agreements. One between the USA and Mexico, and one between the USA and Canada.

In the decades that preceded the 2017 push to redo the trade pact, Canada had restructured their economy to: (1) align with progressive climate change; and (2) take advantage of the NAFTA loophole. The Canadian government did not want to reengage in a new trade agreement.

Canada has deindustrialized much of their manufacturing base to support the ‘environmental’ aspirations of their progressive politicians. Instead, Canada became an importer of component goods where companies then assembled those imports into finished products to enter the U.S. market without tariffs. Working with Chinese manufacturing companies, Canada exploited the NAFTA loophole.

Justin Trudeau was strongly against renegotiating NAFTA, and stated he and Chrystia Freeland would not support reopening the trade agreement. President Trump didn’t care about the position of Canada and was going forward. Trudeau said he would not support it. Trump focused on the first bilateral trade agreement with Mexico.

When the U.S. and Mexico had agreed to terms of the new trade deal and 80% of the agreement was finished, representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce informed Trudeau that his position was weak and if the U.S. and Mexico inked their deal, Canada would be shut out.

The U.S Chamber of Commerce was upset because they were kept out of all the details of the agreement between the U.S. and Mexico. In actuality the U.S CoC was effectively blocked from any participation.

When they went to talk to the Canadians the CoC was warning them about what was likely to happen. NAFTA would end, the U.S. and Mexico would have a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), and then Trump was likely to turn to Trudeau and say NAFTA is dead, now we need to negotiate a separate deal for U.S-Canada.

Trudeau was told a direct bilateral trade agreement between the U.S and Canada was the worst possible scenario for the Canadian government. Canada would lose access to the NAFTA loophole and Canada’s entire economy was no longer in a position to negotiate against the size of the USA. Trump would win every demand.

Following the warning, Trudeau went to visit Nancy Pelosi to find out if congress was likely to ratify a new bilateral trade agreement between the U.S and Mexico. Pelosi warned Trudeau there was enough political support for the NAFTA elimination from both parties. Yes, the bilateral trade agreement was likely to find support.

Realizing what was about to happen, Prime Minister Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland quickly changed approach and began to request discussions and meetings with USTR Robert Lighthizer. Keep in mind more than 80 to 90% of the agreement was already done by the U.S. and Mexico teams. Both President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and President Trump were now openly talking about when it would be finalized and signed.

Nancy Pelosi stepped in to help Canada get back into the agreement by leveraging her Democrats. Trump agreed to let Canada engage, and Lighthizer agreed to hold discussions with Chrystia Freeland on a tri-lateral trade agreement that ultimately became the USMCA.

The key points to remember are: (1) Trump, Ross and Lighthizer would prefer two separate bilateral trade agreements because the U.S. import/export dynamic was entirely different between Mexico and Canada. And because of the loophole issue, (2) a five-year review was put into the finished USMCA trade agreement. The USMCA was signed on November 30, 2018, and came into effect on July 1, 2020.

TIMELINE: The USMCA is now up for review (2025) and renegotiation in 2026!

This timeline is the key to understanding where President Donald Trump stands today. The review and renegotiation is his goal.

President Trump said openly he was going to renegotiate the USMCA, leveraging border security (Mexico) and reciprocity (Canada) within it.

Following the 2024 presidential election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago and said if President Trump was to make the Canadian government face reciprocal tariffs, open the USMCA trade agreements to force reciprocity, and/or balance economic relations on non-tariff issues, then Canada would collapse upon itself economically and cease to exist.

In essence, according to Trudeau, Canada cannot survive as a free and independent north American nation, without receiving all the one-way benefits from the U.S. economy.

To wit, President Trump then said, if Canada cannot survive in a balanced rules environment, including putting together their own military and defenses (which it cannot), then Canada should become the 51st U.S state. It was following this meeting that President Trump started emphasizing this point and shocking everyone in the process.

However, what everyone missed was the strategy Trump began outlining when contrast against the USMCA review and renegotiation window.

Again, Trump doesn’t like the tri-lateral trade agreement. President Trump would rather have two separate bilateral agreements; one for Mexico and one for Canada. Multilateral trade agreements are difficult to manage and police.

How was President Trump going to get Canada to (a) willingly exit the USMCA; and (b) enter a bilateral trade agreement?

The answer was through trade and tariff provocations, while simultaneously hitting Canada with the shock and awe aspect of the 51st state.

The Canadian government and the Canadian people fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Trump’s position on the Canadian election outcome had nothing to do with geopolitical friendships and everything to do with America-First economics. When asked about the election in Canada President Trump said, “I don’t care. I think it’s easier to deal, actually, with a liberal and maybe they’re going to win, but I don’t really care.”

By voting emotionally, the Canadian electorate have fallen into President Trump’s USMCA exit trap. Prime Minister Carney will make the exit much easier. Carney now becomes the target of increased punitive coercion until such a time as the USMCA review is begun, and Canada is forced to a position of renegotiation.

Trump never wanted Canada as a 51st state.

Trump always wanted a U.S-Canada bilateral trade agreement.

Mark Carney said the era of U.S-Canadian economic ties “are officially declared severed.”

Canada positioned themselves to willingly exit the USMCA trade agreement at the perfect time for President Trump.

Why do you think Mexico stayed quiet?

Canada is taking actions to replace their U.S. trade relationship by aligning more with the EU and China. This is a very dangerous approach for the Canadian people, because in the short-term there may be benefits; however, in the longer term the downsides are quite severe.

Remember, Xi Jinping wanted Mark Carney to win the parliamentary election.

The reality of the U.S-Canada economic relationship and the position of President Donald Trump is not that difficult to understand if you take all the disparate datapoints and quotes from Trump and put them into context.

During a May 2025, White House meeting with Mark Carney, President Trump essentially told the Canadian Prime Minister why he was in no hurry to get to a deal with Canada. The 35% tariffs on non-USMCA goods triggered August 1st because the main priority of Trump -looking toward Canada- is to dissolve the USMCA.

During the May 6th oval office meeting with Carney, President Trump was discussing the USMCA and said:

“As you know it terminates fairly shortly. It gets renegotiated fairly shortly.” … “This was a transitional deal, and we’ll see what happens, we’re going to start renegotiating that” … “I don’t know if it serves a purpose anymore.” …. “And the biggest purpose it served was, we got rid of NAFTA.”

[theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/05/0]

Currently, approximately 60% of the traded goods and services between the U.S. and Canada are covered by the USMCA; the remaining 40% was hit by tariffs on August 1st at a 35% rate.

When the USMCA is renegotiated, predictably dissolved in favor of two bilateral trade agreements – one for Mexico and one for Canada, all of the U.S-Canada trade sectors will be part of the enlarged free trade negotiation. As a result, there is absolutely no motive to engage in trade discussions now.

President Trump’s position is essentially to talk about the details when the USMCA is dissolved; hence, the ambivalence. The certainty the Canadians are looking for can be found easily if they stop pretending.

(1) U.S. tariffs against non-USMCA products from Canada went into effect on August 1st. (2) As soon as the USMCA is reopened, it will be dissolved. (3) After the USMCA dissolution, a bilateral free trade agreement between the USA and Canada will be negotiated.

Every current effort by Canada to change the nature of the trade system, between now and the reopening of the USMCA (to dissolve it), is futile.

This is where it becomes important to understand the core reason why Trump, Ross and Lighthizer (2017) did not structurally want to replace the NAFTA agreement with another trilateral trade deal. Mexico and Canada are completely different as it pertains to trade with the USA. President Trump would rather have two separate bilateral agreements; one for Mexico and one for Canada.

Firstly, Canada is a NATO partner, Mexico is not. As President Trump affirmed to Justin Trudeau during the meeting, it would be unfair of President Trump to discuss NATO funding with the European Union, while Canada is one of the worst offenders. Trump is leveraging favorable trade terms and tariff relief with the EU member states, as a carrot to get them into compliance with the 2.0 to 2.5% spending requirement for their military.

If the NATO member states contribute more to their own defense, the U.S. can pull back spending and save Americans money. However, Canada is currently 26th in NATO funding, spending only 1.37% of their GDP on defense (link).

Canada would have to spend at least another $15 billion/yr on their defense programs in order to reach 2.0%. Justin Trudeau told President Trump that was an impossible goal given the nature of the Canadian political system, and the current size of their economy ($2.25 trillion).

Secondly, over the last 40 years Canada has deindustrialized their economy, Mexico has not. As the progressive political ideology of their politicians took control of Canada policy, the ‘climate change’ agenda and ‘green’ economy became their focus.

The dirty industrialized systems were not compliant with the goals of the Canadian policy makers. The dirty mining sector (coal, coking coal, ore) no longer exists at scale to support self-sufficient manufacturing. The dirty oil refineries do not exist to refine the crude oil they extract. Large industrial heavy industry no longer exists at a scale needed to be self-sufficient. Instead, Canada purchases forged and rolled steel component parts from overseas (mostly China). Making the issue more challenging, Canada doesn’t even have enough people skilled to do the dirty jobs within the heavy manufacturing; they would need a national apprenticeship program. Again, all points raised by Trudeau to explain why bilateral trade compliance was impossible.

Thirdly, the trade between Canada/U. S and Mexico/U. S is entirely different. The main imports from Canada are energy, lumber and raw materials. The main imports from Mexico are agriculture, cars and finished industrial goods. Mexico refines its own oil; Canada ships their oil to the USA for refining. There are obviously some similar products from Mexico and Canada, but for the most part there is a big difference.

Fourth, USA banks are allowed to operate in Mexico, but USA banks are not allowed to operate in Canada. USA media organizations are allowed to broadcast in Mexico, but USA media organizations are regulated and not permitted to broadcast in Canada. The Canadian government has strong regulations and restrictions on information and Intellectual Property.

All of these points of difference highlight why a trilateral trade agreement like NAFTA and the USMCA (CUSMA) just don’t work out for the USA.

Additionally, if President Trump levies a tariff on Chinese imports, it hits Canada much harder than Mexico because Canada has deindustrialized and now imports from China to assemble into finished goods destined to the USA. In a very direct way Canada is a passthrough for Chinese products. Canada is now more of an assembly economy, not a dirty job manufacturing economy.

Because the Canadian government became so dependent on their role as an assembly economy, they enmeshed with China in a way that made them dependent. The political issues of Chinese influence within Canada are a direct result of this dynamic. In fact, China was the big winner from the outcome of the recent election because all of their investments into Canada are grounded on retaining Liberal government dependency.

If Trump targets China with punitive tariffs, the Canadian economy will be collaterally damaged. Canada will end up paying a tariff rate because they use cheap Chinese component parts in their finished goods. Canada has structurally designed their economy to do this over multiple years.

Understanding the unique nature of the Canadian economic conundrum, the only way to address the issue is to break out the USMCA into two separate bilateral trade agreements. One set of trade terms for Mexico that leverages border security, and one set of trade terms for Canada that leverages NATO security and border security. The only substantive similarity between them will be in the auto and agriculture sector.

cnbc.com/2024/04/09/can washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-amer mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iWUH-qg2IlHm

Choosing to embrace China in lieu of modifying bilateral trade agreements with the USA is a short-sighted fool’s errand. But with political calculations each entity, Canada and/or the EU collective, are pandering to their base out of an unwillingness to change trade behavior as demanded by Trump.

Yes, Canada may end up exporting more goods to China to replace the USA losses, but at what cost long-term.

Think about the EU auto-sector as an example.

To avoid paying their own climate change fines, the EU automakers are purchasing carbon credits from Chinese EV automakers. In the short term, that trick may diminish the auto company fines to Brussels but think about the longer-term problem.

China takes the revenue from the EU companies and uses it to subsidize their EV exports making their EVs cost substantially less than EU electric vehicles in the EU.

Geely, BYD, etc. can lower the price of an EV in Europe because EU car companies are giving them money. The EU is paying China to destroy the EU auto industry. You cannot make this stuff up.

In the Canadian model, Mark Carney may end up selling more stuff to China but he’s going to end up selling less to the USA because Chinese components are subject to larger USA trade tariffs.

Canada is betting they can export more $$ to Beijing than they will lose in diminished export $$ to the USA. Fine, that’s the bet (political calculation). However, the reality of the end result is increased dependency on China. That never ends well.

Beijing keeps the panda mask on while the dependency is created, see belt and road; however, as soon as it is in Beijing’s interest to drop the panda mask, Canada will see the dragon face behind it.