Between 2011 and 2015, per capita gross domestic product in Canada and the United States was rising in unison. But in 2015, Canada’s per capita GDP began stagnating as America continued its upward trajectory. Both countries experienced a precipitous drop during the pandemic, but the aftermath revealed a stark difference: following the recovery, the American economy continued to grow, while Canada’s stagnated and then began declining in 2022. …
The federal government’s war on fossil fuels dried up investment in the oilpatch. Ever-shifting environmental regulations make it hard for firms to plan for the long term. Red tape adds significant overhead, making it especially hard for startups and small businesses to compete. And many large capital investments — namely in the auto sector — have only been secured with billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.
Business insolvencies dropped during the pandemic due to unprecedented government supports. But when the public funding dried up and interest rates rose, insolvencies increased 150 per cent, reaching a 10-year high in 2024. While the number stabilized a bit in 2025, it was still well above pre-pandemic norms. …
It should thus come as no surprise, then, that fewer Canadians have been willing to risk starting their own businesses in recent years. The number of self-employed Canadians with employees had been steadily declining since the 2008 financial crisis, but began to rebound in 2016.
The rally didn’t last long, however, with the number of Canadian entrepreneurs dropping precipitously in 2018. Although there was a slight increase in 2023, a Business Development Bank of Canada report released that year found that this country had 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than it did 20 years earlier, despite having 10 million more residents.
Read the whole thing.
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Many Canadians are resigned to high household debts and increasingly borrow more to cover basic expenses, a bankruptcy trustee yesterday told the Commons finance committee. Household debt is $3.2 trillion nationwide including more than $2 trillion worth of mortgages, according to Statistics Canada: “Many Canadians have no margin for error.”
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What can go right?:
Carney’s announcement of the Canada Strong Fund, $25 billion to be invested over three years, joins a long list of other funds that are supposed to do the same. The one thing Canada is not lacking is a pool of government money designed to build infrastructure, boost the economy or find and develop the next generation of entrepreneurs.
“Canada’s new government is catalyzing a series of nation-building projects in energy, trade, critical minerals, transport, data, and beyond —
projects that will make Canada stronger, more resilient, and more independent,” Carney said in announcing the fund.
One might rightly ask how the Canada Strong Fund differs in purpose from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Canada Growth Fund, the Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative, which is now called the Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative, or the Strategic Innovation Fund. Of course, this is a short list and doesn’t include the various regional economic development agencies, the federal government’s various loan or business development groups or assorted slush funds.
At his news conference announcing the Canada Strong Fund on Monday, Prime Minister Carney said that the infrastructure bank provides loans while this new fund will take equity or ownership stakes in projects to make more money. Yet the reality is that the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which Carney just boosted from $35 billion in funds to $45 billion last November, also take ownership stakes in projects.
How many different bureaucracies do we need investing in Canadians businesses and trying to “unlock” or “crowd in” private-sector investment?
This is how the federal government describes the $15-billion Canada Growth Fund, “a financially prudent portfolio of investments that unlock private sector investment in Canadian businesses and projects to help grow Canada’s economy at speed and scale.”
Britons should be forgiven for their bafflement, however, given how quickly the gap between Americans and Britons has widened. Nor are they alone. Drawing on World Bank data, EconoFact points out that “in the period 2008-2023, EU GDP grew by 13.5 per cent (from $16.37 trillion to $18.59 trillion) while U.S. GDP rose by 87 per cent (from $14.77 to $27.72 trillion). The U.K.’s GDP increased by 15.4 per cent.”
That is, Britons and their former compatriots in the European Union are growing more prosperous, but at a much slower rate than Americans. This hasn’t put Americans at the economic summit as of yet — places like Switzerland and Singapore still offer their residents higher per capita GDP than does the U.S. But after 15 years of a widening gap, EU GDP went from 110 per cent of that of the U.S. to 67 per cent. That means a smaller share per person, and people in places like the U.K. falling behind the per capita wealth of even the residents of the poorest U.S. state. …
Canada, it should be noted, is doing a bit better than the mother country. The World Bank puts per capita GDP at US$54,340 compared to US$53,246 for the U.K. But U.S. per capita GDP is US$84,534 with a growing gap. As The Economist reported two years ago, “Were Canada’s ten provinces and three territories an American state, they would have gone from being slightly richer than Montana, America’s ninth-poorest state, to being a bit worse off than Alabama, the fourth-poorest” between 2019 and 2024.
Regarding the widening gap between America and its allies and trading partners across the Atlantic, the Cato Institute’s Adam Michel wrote in January that “One structural reason Europe is falling behind is regulatory accumulation, which acts as a brake on innovation and competitiveness.” He noted that, from 2019 to 2024, the EU enacted over 13,000 legislative acts, while the U.S. implemented around 3,500 at the federal level. That’s a crude measure, but the European Commission itself recognizes that the EU needs to create a friendlier environment for startup businesses and make it easier “for companies to operate across the EU by simplifying rules and laws.” …
… There’s an important point in here for Canadians, too, at a time when research shows that more Canadians are starting businesses in the U.S. than in their own country. Why? Well, 41 per cent of corporate CEOs tell the Business Council of Canada that regulatory burdens are their leading concern. As economist Charles Lammam commented last month at The Hub, “even Canada’s most promising entrepreneurs are being pulled south by stronger ecosystems, lighter regulatory burdens, and deeper pools of growth capital.”
Which is to say that, while American politicians often seem dedicated to burdening their countrymen with trade barriers, red tape, and high taxes, the U.S. still excels relative to the competition. The U.S. government’s comparatively light touch lets Americans create wealth at a faster pace than people in other countries. We should all take to heart the lesson that the freer the market, the more we prosper.
The Trump administration is now offering Canadian and Mexican aluminum and steel companies immediate tariff relief if they commit to moving production to the United States in the future.
Prime Minister Mark Carney told the CBC he’s in no hurry to sign a minor deal for tariff relief with the U.S., arguing that other governments that have done so aren’t happy with the results.
“A lot of countries rushed into deals with the U.S.. They weren’t really worth the paper they were written on,” Carney told the broadcaster in an interview that aired Monday.
In private, other countries’ leaders are “certainly not” happy with the agreements they signed to reduce U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on their goods, Carney said — though he didn’t name them.
Unlike many countries, a large majority of goods from Canada are currently imported tariff-free by U.S. buyers, thanks to an exemption recognizing the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement signed by Trump in 2020. Canada is a huge supplier of oil, fertilizer and other raw materials to the U.S., and adding import taxes to those would add to U.S. inflationary pressures.
But high U.S. tariffs against foreign autos, steel, aluminum and lumber are hitting Canada’s economy and causing job losses because those industries are interlinked with the U.S. market.
Carney told the CBC he doesn’t want to strike an imperfect “small deal that disadvantages us” simply to win relief in those industries.
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WOW
— Juno News (@junonewscom) April 23, 2026
Ambassador Wiseman blames Donald Trump for strained U.S. relations amid reports that PM Carney obstructed talks as a negotiating tactic.
Wiseman reiterates Canada is "ready, willing and able" to engage in negotiations under the CUSMA review. pic.twitter.com/0bEqLlIvpr
Chinese police are a law enforcement “partner” just like the FBI, the Mounties said yesterday. However details of a confidential partnership agreement with Beijing cannot be disclosed “without their permission,” said a Deputy Commissioner.
President Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing in May for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and he will come bearing at least one surprising gift: A budget request to Congress to hand more money to Mr. Xi’s friends at the International Monetary Fund.
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Parliament’s official record shows Liberal MP Michael Ma was referring to Xinjiang — a region in China where reports of forced labour have been documented — in a committee meeting last month, contradicting the MP’s claims that he was misheard during a contentious exchange with a witness.
Ma was also given the opportunity to correct the official transcript and didn’t do so, the office of the Speaker of the House of Commons told the Star.
“The committee transcript is prepared as a substantially verbatim record based on the official audio. In this case, the audio clearly captured the word ‘Xinjiang,’ and this was reflected in the draft transcript and the final published evidence,” a spokesperson for the Speaker’s office wrote in a statement.
“Members and the committee clerk are given an opportunity to review the draft transcript and request corrections prior to publication. No correction was submitted during that process. As a result, the published record reflects what was heard on the audio.”
Ma, the Markham-Unionville MP who crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals late last year, did not immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment on Thursday afternoon.
Six liberal insiders are receiving $200 million for leasing out a gravel pit
— Marc Nixon (@MarcNixon24) April 24, 2026
They don’t even own the land. The province owns it. They’re releasing it.
The RCMP needs to come in and arrest people pic.twitter.com/0UjfH6ckbo
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