Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Let’s Make Canada Great Again!

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Published

6 months ago

12 minute read

Trump’s Team Unity… Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance, President-elect Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jun., Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy… if they’re able to do all they’re promising, Canada will be more uncompetitive yet, writes Brian Giesbrecht and the best and brightest will leaveTrump campaign.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

Trump will make America so tempting to the talented, that we’re going to get more uncompetitive still

“The number of people migrating to the US is not the main concern, more importantly it is who is leaving.”

The “brain drain” is a problem that has been a real concern for Canada at many times in our history. In the 1990s it was a topic fiercely debated by policy wonks, politicians and other concerned Canadians. Many of our best and brightest were benefitting from expensive college and university educations here, then promptly moving south for better opportunities.

Simply put, when Canada raises taxes, and stifles economic opportunity for young people here, while the Americans are lowering taxes and opening up their economy to the south of us, we can expect to see much of our best talent move south.

That’s what we have been seeing for some time now — doctors, engineers, trades and businesspeople of all types moving to escape the high taxes and the stagnant economy they see in what is today’s high-tax, big government, woke Canada.

Since 2015, housing costs have risen much faster than wages, making house ownership and rent costs absolutely punishing. Excessive immigration numbers have only added to the misery. Canada, for many years considered to be one of the best western countries in which to live is now one of the worst.

Canada’s current brain drain trickle can be expected to turn into a flood. Trump has promised to deregulate, lower taxes and “drain the swamp”. His appointment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to the mischievously named “DOGE” (Department of Government Efficiency) is evidence of his seriousness.

As evidence of how quickly things are turning, consider the huge stock market gains that happened as a direct consequence of Trump’s election. Clearly, the “smart money” is anticipating that Trump’s promises to “drill, baby, drill” and reinvigorate an over-regulated and over-taxed Biden economy are more than empty promises.

So, while right now Trump is busy trolling Democrats with his cabinet picks, by the time we get around to a spring election here it is probable that Trump will have the American economy galloping along. Meanwhile, at the same time that Trump is lowering taxes and deregulating, the Trudeau government is going in exactly the opposite direction.

Chrystia Freeland is determined to raise the capital gains tax. A capital gains tax hike will cause widespread damage. Meanwhile her proud socialist colleague, Steven Guilbeault — who has never seen an extra tax or regulation he doesn’t like — is dead-set on hiking Canada’s job-killing carbon tax yet again.

And let’s not forget the Trudeau affirmative action, DEI, merit-killing philosophy that has steadily eroded our competitiveness and standard of living. When contrasted with the Biden race-based version of the same, it was bad enough that Canada’s productivity continues to fall relative America’s. (Our sickly dollar is barely over 70 percent of theirs, while our government expenditures make up a staggering 44% of GDP.)

The contrast between the two economies can only be expected to become more pronounced as Trump’s America becomes increasingly merit-based. DOGE will take a meat cleaver to government spending, and the DEI, critical race theory Bidenite mush, will be trashed.

While Canada is still dealing with such woke idiocies as boys in girl sports, child mutilation in the name of gender ideology, and pretending to believe indigenous activist claims about secret burials of indigenous school children, Trump’s America will look very attractive to ambitious young Canadians who want to skip the wokeism, and raise their families in a country that rewards hard work. It will be hard to blame our best engineers, and tradespeople from heading down to exciting opportunities in Texas, Montana and elsewhere in the United States, when their talents are not appreciated here.

Many have already departed. Canadian accents are increasingly common in Texas. The contrast between a Trump America that rewards hard work, and a Trudeau Canada that only taxes it will be stark. Enterprising Canadians will face the choice of staying in a Canada that takes bigger and bigger bites out of paychecks, or moving to a country that doesn’t.

Let’s remember that many of our highly educated doctors and professionals are recent immigrants, with no special loyalty to Canada. Steven Harper also spoke of the “anywhere people” and the “somewhere people”. Those in the first category are the educated and privileged class whose have the money and talent that make it possible for them to move anywhere in the world on short notice. We need both the talented immigrants and “anywheres”, but they will be the first to leave.

Canada has gone through similar brain drain episodes before. During the 1990s there was a very real concern that we were losing far too many good people. A debt problem that began with the big-spending Pierre Trudeau government got steadily worse, our civil service was bloated, and taxes were far higher than they were for our American counterparts. To their credit, the Chrétien/Martin government introduced a budget in 1995 that helped with those problems.

The incoming Steven Harper government 2006-15 further stemmed the tide of departures by building a competitive economy that had our dollar at par with the American dollar. For a brief time the Canadian dollar was even higher! In these days of our pathetic 70 cent dollar it now seems hard to believe that even happened.

There seems to be little hope that the current Liberal government — still dug in in Ottawa — will take steps to make our economy competitive with Trump’s. As Kevin O’Leary explains, the damage that Trudeau has done to the Canadian economy is incalculable.

Canada has been on a slow downward slide since 2015. This has been Canada’s “lost decade”.

But there are reasons other than just the economic for wanting to leave. Under Justin Trudeau Canada has become not only a poorer place, but a directionless dystopia for many conservative-leaning Canadians. Extreme progressivism — “woke” — is the Trudeau Liberal religion.

As Eric Kaufman points out, extreme beliefs, such as “a man becomes a woman by saying so,” the belief in such economy-killing absurdities as “carbon-zero by 2040,” “borders don’t matter,” “merit-based hiring is systemic racism” etc are accepted by only a small minority of Canadians, and yet those are the policies the current government is forcing on everyone.

To add insult to injury we have Trudeau tweeting “a trans woman is a woman,” “we accept all comers,” “Canada is a genocidal nation,” and other such inanities. The great majority of Canadians do not want Trudeau’s “post-national state with no core identity” bilge. They want Canada back.

Trump has promised to rid his country of the extreme progressivism that Americans so convincingly rejected on Nov 5. Post-election surveys have revealed that the single most important issue that persuaded swing voters to vote for Trump was Kamala Harris’s support for taxpayer funding for transgender surgery for prison inmates.

This bit of woke craziness proved to be a bridge too far even for those who usually voted Democrat.

We can expect to see a virtual war on woke when Trump assumes power. In fact, it is already happening. Absurdities, like men forcing their way into women’s sporting events and women’s spaces will come to an end. Most Americans simply don’t want radical progressivism. As Professor Kaufman’s survey shows (above) — neither do Canadians.

The old saying is that living next to America is like sleeping with an elephant. Every time that the elephant moves, we had better do so too. With the election of Donald Trump, Canada must quickly adjust to the moves that elephant makes. Or suffer the consequences.

The chance to do so will likely be next spring, when Justin Trudeau will finally be forced to call an election. His election strategy will almost certainly be the same one he has used against previous Conservative challengers — he accuses them of being “like Trump.” But this time this strategy might not work.

If Trump’s America is humming along on all cylinders, while Trudeau’s weak, woke Canada looks pathetic in comparison, this time Canadians might say, “Yes, like Trump’s America. That’s exactly what we want!”

We need our best and brightest to stay here. We need to end the brain drain. We can do that by making Canada into a 2025 version of the Canada we used to know.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He was recently named the ‘Western Standard Columnist of the Year.’

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Too Graphic For A Press Conference But Fine For Kids In School?

Published on June 8, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Alberta moves to remove books after disturbing content, too graphic for media to view, was found in schools

Should elementary school children be given books to read with harsh insults against minorities, depictions of oral sex, and other disturbingly graphic and explicit content?

Such books have been in some Alberta elementary schools for a while, and in many school libraries across Canada.

In late May, the Alberta government announced it would establish new guidelines regarding age-appropriate materials in its schools. A government press release included quotes with disturbing content, but at a press conference, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said some book illustrations could not be shown.

“I would show these images to all of you here and to the media, but they are too graphic for a live-stream media event. These examples … illustrate the kind of content that raises concerns amongst parents,” Nicolaides said.

You don’t say? This seems like the sort of stuff no one, except a pervert in a park, would dream of showing to a child. Ironically, the inability to publicize such graphic materials is part of the reason they have been shown to children with little public awareness.

Citizens’ group Action4Canada (A4C) has claimed its activism played a pivotal role in the Alberta decision. The organization has compiled a 36-page document online with examples of objectionable content in Canadian schools. Among the worst is Identical by Ellen Hopkins, which includes graphic descriptions of a little girl being molested by her father.

A4C founder Tanya Gaw has repeatedly tried to raise concerns about objectionable books with school boards, often without success. In some cases, she isn’t even allowed on the agenda if she states her topic upfront. When she is permitted to speak, she’s frequently cut off as soon as she begins quoting from the books, preventing the content from entering the public record.

In January 2023, Gaw made an online presentation to a school board in Mission, B.C. regarding materials in their schools. As she began to screenshare what was there, some board members objected, saying such permission had not been given in advance.

One month later, the board banned Action4Canada from making any further presentations. In later media interviews, the board chair justified the decision by saying Gaw’s PowerPoint contained some graphic and “inappropriate images.”

Exactly, and that is the problem. A recent check showed Mission’s school division only removed four of 15 books A4C objected to. Gaw is just glad “Identical” is one of them.

Pierre Barns, a father from Abbotsford, B.C., made it his mission to notify school boards across Canada what was on their school shelves. An online search was all it took to confirm. A “reply all” from a board member at the Halton School District in Ontario was most ironic.

“I am concerned. This individual has included links to publications and videos which may contain illegal content,” she wrote.

“I’m not sure how to investigate the content of the email safely. Would you please advise us whether or not this person ought to be reported to police? Is there some action we should take?”

There probably was action they should have taken, such as removing the books, but that never happened. Later, they defended a biologically male teacher in their school division who made international headlines by wearing large prosthetic breasts to school.

The Alberta government has committed to conducting public consultations before implementing new policies. It’s a good time for parents and citizens there and in other provinces to speak up. A young mind is a terrible thing to corrupt, but unfortunately, some schools are part of this corrosive effort.

Lee Harding is a research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Economy

Canada Treats Energy As A Liability. The World Sees It As Power

Published on June 1, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Institute for Public Policy

By Marco Navarro-Genie

Research VP Marco Navarro-Genie warns that Canada’s future hinges on building energy infrastructure, not just expanding pipelines but forging a true North American energy alliance. With global demand rising and authoritarian regimes weaponizing energy, Ottawa’s dithering costs Canada $70 million daily. Sovereignty isn’t secured by speeches but by infrastructure. Until Canada sheds its regulatory paralysis, it will remain a discount supplier in a high stakes geopolitical game. Time to build.

Canada has energy the world is begging for, but ideology and red tape are holding us back

As Prime Minister Mark Carney met with U.S. President Donald Trump recently, energy should have been the issue behind every headline, whether mentioned or not. Canada’s future as a sovereign, economically resilient country will depend in no small part on whether the country seizes this moment or stalls out again in a fog of regulatory inertia and political ambivalence. Canada holds an underleveraged strategic card: the potential to be the world’s most reliable democratic energy supplier. Recent trade figures show Chinese imports of Canadian crude hit a record 7.3 million barrels in March, a direct result of newly expanded access to the Pacific via the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX), a federally owned pipeline project that now connects Alberta crude to global markets through British Columbia’s coast. But one pipeline does not make a national strategy. Demand in Asia is growing fast. India is among the hungriest, but Canada’s infrastructure is nowhere near meeting that demand.

This matters not just for Canada, but for the United States as well. In a world where energy markets are weaponized and strategic reserves manipulated by authoritarian regimes, the case for a coordinated North American energy alliance is stronger than ever. Such an alliance should not erode national sovereignty. It should reinforce it, allowing Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to insulate themselves collectively from supply shocks and geopolitical blackmail while projecting democratic strength abroad.

But for that alliance to work, Canada must be a credible partner, not merely a junior supplier shackled by Ottawa-induced internal bottlenecks. While the U.S. has leveraged its shale revolution, LNG capacity and permitting reforms to pursue energy dominance, Canada dithers. Projects languish. Investment flees. And meanwhile, Canadian oil continues to flow south at a steep discount, only to be refined and resold, often back to us or our trading partners, at full global prices.

Yes, you read that right. Canada’s oil and gas is sold at a discount to U.S. customers, and that discount costs Canada more than $70 million every single day. The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has developed a real-time tracker to monitor these losses. This pricing gap exists because Canada lacks sufficient pipeline infrastructure to access overseas buyers directly, forcing producers to sell to the U.S., often at below-market rates.

Such massive losses should be unacceptable to any government serious about economic growth, geopolitical influence or environmental integrity. Yet Ottawa continues to speak the language of ambition while legislating the mechanics of paralysis. Stephen Guilbault’s statement that Canada already has enough pipelines speaks to more paralysis..

Canada’s energy infrastructure challenges are not just economic; they are matters of national defence. No country can claim to be secure while relying on another’s pipelines to transport its energy across its own territory. No country can afford to leave its wealth-producing regions boxed in by regulatory choke points or political resistance dressed as environmental virtue.

Our energy economy is fragmented. Western hydrocarbons are stuck inland and must pass through the U.S. to reach Eastern Canada or global markets eastward. This weakens national unity and leaves us exposed to foreign leverage. It also creates strategic vulnerabilities for our allies. American industries depend on Canadian crude. So do U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. And while American officials continue to treat energy as a tool of diplomacy and economic leverage, using energy exports to build alliances and reduce reliance on unstable regimes, Canada treats it as a domestic liability.

We need to shift the frame. Infrastructure isn’t just about steel in the ground; it’s the backbone of strategic autonomy. Pipelines, export terminals and utility corridors would allow Canada to claim its place in the emerging geopolitical order. They would also signal to global investors that Canada is open for business and capable of delivering returns without political obstruction.

The U.S. wants a stable, competent partner to help meet global energy needs. Increasingly, so does the rest of the world. But until we address our internal dysfunction and build, we’re stuck. Stuck watching global opportunities pass us by. Stuck selling low while others sell high. Stuck in a conversation about sovereignty we’re not structurally equipped to address, let alone win.

When Carney meets with Trump again, he would do well to remember that economic independence, not rhetorical unity, is the bedrock of sovereignty. Without infrastructure, Canada brings only words to a hard-power conversation.

Paraphrasing Thomas Hobbes, energy covenants without infrastructure are but words. It’s time to stop posturing and start building.

Marco Navarro-Genie is the vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He is co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).