Not the government's money, of course:
According to the OECD, Canada was the third largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the first three quarters of 2023 (at US$42 billion), behind only the United States and Brazil. Does that mean Canada is doing well attracting capital, as the federal government has argued? Not really. Not if you consider outflows, too.
Canada has always relied heavily on FDI inflows to grow our economy. At times, we have been uneasy about foreign takeovers of major Canadian companies. But we have benefited from the new technology, management and jobs FDI usually brings. The highest inflow in the past decade and a half (US$69.4 billion) was in 2014 and it was more than any other country received that year except the U.S. and China. The worst year was 2017 when we received only US$22.8 billion and placed 17th of 45 countries. (Note that these numbers are not inflation-adjusted.)
FDI numbers jump around for good reason. Statistical agencies add up the equity and debt used by non-residents to buy Canadian assets and also include the reinvested profits of foreign-owned companies operating here (exchange rate impacts on earnings are excluded). So the numbers include lumpy greenfield investments in newly constructed plants that may take several years to build. And a big acquisition in one year may make the following year’s numbers look low by comparison.
Foreign investment can be measured as an inflow (acquisitions net of dispositions coming into Canada) or an outflow (Canadian money invested elsewhere). Net FDI — let’s call it the FDI balance — is inflows minus outflows. In the first three quarters of 2023, Canada did attract US$42 billion of inflows, which is about 4.5 per cent of GDP. But Canadians put their money elsewhere to the tune of US$56.5 billion (six per cent of GDP), resulting in a balance of negative US$14.5 billion (about 1.5 per cent of GDP).
In fact, Canada has been a net exporter of capital in this way since the mid-1990s. We tend to assume exporting capital is only bad. But investments made abroad do eventually lead to the repatriation of profits back to Canada. And when Canadian companies go global, their presence in foreign markets may enable them to export more from their Canadian operations (not that only exports are good: imports are too!).
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Canadian governments have the power to make life more affordable. But in some sectors of the economy, they just don’t want to.
Supply-chain issues, pent-up demand and interest rate hikes have all helped boost prices in the past couple of years, as the market reacts to a world recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments have tried to ease these problems, with tax relief or short-term programs.
However, there are still many politically expedient policies around that have artificially added to the financial burden of all Canadians. And governments haven’t even tried to deal with them.
A recent Angus Reid poll found that 60 per cent of Canadians are having difficulties managing their expenses. Part of the problem lies in government policies that hinder Canadians from fully realizing the benefits of a market economy.
Market incentives are powerful. They create competition and innovation, resulting in competitively priced goods and services. However, governments often implement regulations or taxes to shield vocal constituencies from competition. It is consumers who bear the cost by having to pay higher prices for goods and services.
Consider free trade: Despite Canada’s advocacy for it, the federal government imposes tariffs on many goods important to Canadians. For instance, imported shoes and clothing can incur duties up to 18 per cent. There is no overriding need for these barriers, as there is no large domestic industry to protect: Ninety-five per cent of clothing and footwear sold in this country are produced abroad. ...
Finally, if the federal government truly wanted to ease cost-of-living concerns, it would dismantle the supply management system for household staples such as chicken, milk, cheese and butter. By eliminating the huge current tariffs and a host of other regulatory barriers, researchers estimate that an average Canadian household could enjoy an annual benefit of $440.
When government policies result in higher prices or product shortages, politicians often attribute the prevailing conditions to a market failure. However, these are policy failures, unintended consequences inhibiting the market from functioning as it should.
So politicians can do something to help Canadians: They must stop meddling. As a bonus, these solutions do not require bureaucracies to grow or add new spending programs. They simply lift the burden of existing policies that hinder Canadians from receiving the full economic benefits of a market economy.
Overlooked in this article and by Canadians in general is that most household goods are produced cheaply elsewhere and tend to be inferior. How many jobs could be created with a few shoe factories in Canada?
Also, the matter of food. Canada has food management systems (Soviet in style, really) that, if removed, would make food cheaper.
When people complain about how grocery stores are benefitting from higher prices (most inaccurate consider the food management systems, the demands of the market, and high taxes and inflation), they overlook the very restraints and problems that affect them in every other good and service, like fuelling their cars, heating or cooling their homes and unemployment (and why some have simply removed themselves from the job market).
It takes the heat off of the real culprits.
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Tell me it is a scam without saying it directly:
Cabinet admits an Arctic green energy program is running behind schedule but denies millions in cost overruns. Local authorities since 2017 have sought to install a wind turbine on the tundra outside Inuvik: “Delays in projects occur for a variety of reasons.”
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“Canada’s International Climate Finance Program aims to support low and middle-income countries already affected by climate change in their transition to sustainable, low-carbon, climate-resilient, nature-positive and inclusive development,” states part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Jan. 29 response to Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant’s Inquiry of Ministry.On Dec. 1, Ms. Gallant asked the ECCC what the funding provided by the government to the United Nations and other international organizations for climate-related efforts has been since Jan. 1, 2016. She specified that she wanted information on the total amount given, broken down by date, recipient, purpose, and what had been done “to ensure the money was spent appropriately.”
Also:
The near-term challenges of mass electric vehicle (EV) adoption inevitably begin with price, but a recent cold snap has re-emphasized battery and charging snags. In addition, as prices for new EVs trend down, new buyers also have to consider potentially lower resale values.Tom Narayan, lead equity analyst covering global autos at RBC Capital Markets, told BNN Bloomberg on Jan. 31 that the EV market is going through a bit of a slowdown.“Price of the car—that’s one of the main reasons why people aren’t buying EVs right now. Another reason is range anxiety, because public charging isn’t as good. Or at least psychologically people don’t think it’s as good,” he said.
And - bribing people with their own money:
Small business has yet to see billions in promised carbon tax rebates, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said yesterday. The finance department in 2019 said it was “developing the specifics” for payouts: “There is no mechanism in place to return a dime to small business.”
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I'll believe it when I see it, Pierre:
Federal subsidies have turned national media into a government-paid press reliant on the Prime Minister’s Office, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre yesterday told reporters. Any future Conservative cabinet will end direct federal subsidies to newsrooms, he said: “We believe media should be driven by readership, viewership and listenership.”
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Some people are - well - special:
“Despite the billions of dollars devoted to aboriginal causes, Native people in Canada continue to suffer all the symptoms of a marginalized existence — high rates of substance abuse, violence, poverty. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry argues that the policies proposed to address these problems — land claims and self government — are in fact contributing to their entrenchment.”
However, Disrobing was written in 2009, and since the Trudeau Liberals took over in 2015, the money flowing into the Indian Industry has increased dramatically in volume. In fact, that money flow and the enormous indigenous contingent liabilities that now total $76,000,000,000 are growing so quickly — seven times higher since Trudeau took over — that the parliamentary budget officer has raised the alarm. Canada’s economic future is being compromised.
It isn’t only indigenous contingent liabilities — money owed for indigenous claims — that have grown so alarmingly, it is all indigenous spending. Reports from the Fraser Institute keep track of the shocking increases in total indigenous spending since the Trudeau Liberals took power. It is fair to say that the truly frightening federal government deficits in recent years occurred largely because of this extra indigenous spending.
And it isn’t only the largesse of the Trudeau government that has dumped money into the Indian Industry. Since 2015 it has also been the residential school bonanza.
Clever lobbyists have been able to extract tens of billions of dollars from taxpayers by making highly exaggerated claims that residential schools were places of horror, where priests tortured, murdered and secretly buried thousands of indigenous children.
These claims are nonsense.
Although it is completely true that the residential school system was deeply flawed and that many indigenous children were badly hurt by their residential school experience, it is also true that many received educations they would otherwise have been denied.
But, more to the point, there is no evidence that even one child was murdered, or secretly buried during the entire history of residential schools. Despite that, baseless claims of clandestine deaths and secret burials have worked very well for everyone involved in the Indian Industry. Residential schools have become the Indian Industry’s single biggest money earner.
But, as Widdowson and Howard noted years ago, the Indian Industry has done nothing to solve what has always been called Canada’s “Indian problem” — namely that the great majority of Canada’s indigenous people remain far behind the mainstream on every social indicator. They are the least healthy, worst educated, most incarcerated, shortest living of any demographic by far.
They were that way before 2015, and they remain that way now. The Indian Industry, and the astounding amounts of money poured into it since 2015 haven’t changed those depressing numbers one bit.
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Some people are - well - in like Flint:
Canada Revenue Agency data confirm a “significant drop” in the number of audits targeting wealthy tax filers, Conservative MP Adam Chambers (Simcoe North, Ont.) yesterday told the Commons finance committee. New figures follow longstanding criticism that auditors target small business and other “low hanging fruit.”
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