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If you feel like Canada is damaged, you are alone. Last year, a Léger poll revealed that 70% of Canadians believe that “everything is broken in the country right now. ”
The social contract Canadians thought was in place — work hard, pay your fair share of taxes, buy a home, raise a family — is broken. It’s becoming so difficult and expensive to support families and communities that widespread disenchantment, despondency and even discord is taking hold.
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At the Independent Business and Contractor Association (ICBA), we communicate a lot about the hard work structural professionals do to build our communities. We also celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit and risk-taking that lies at the heart of any outsourcing business.
Construction will tell you that the more you forget about messes on a job site, the worse they become. And in Canada, the Trudeau government has forgotten about too many disorders for too long.
That is why the ICBA, Canada’s largest structural association, supported Pierre Poilievre and his conservatives.
There was a time when Canada was a country of proud builders. No task is too big for the ambitions of a young country seeking to assert its position in the world. We have built ports, pipelines, hydroelectric dams, mines, the St. Lawrence Seaway, roads, bridges and houses. We don’t just build with a purpose: we build things quickly.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone. It took us more than a decade to duplicate an existing pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby, B. C. , and when we upgraded the George Massey Tunnel in B. C. Highway 99, one of Canada’s busiest transportation corridors, has been a nearly 30-year effort.
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Virtually every single primary infrastructure allocation undertaken in Canada today is over budget and over schedule. Cost overruns run into billions and delays are measured in years, even decades. And we are failing to renew our obsolete infrastructure. In 2024, we experience significant infrastructure issues in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.
For most Canadians, the inability to build manifests itself most clearly in homelessness. We are currently building about the same number of homes in Canada as we did in 1972, two generations ago.
Excessive regulation, bureaucracy, taxes and fees have caused prices to be higher and the structure to have slowed down to the point that the source is unlikely to catch up with demand, which is the key to rebalance real estate markets. Meanwhile, our towns are hit through degrees of immigration that we simply absorb.
We are also becoming poorer. The Fraser Institute recently compared the median wages of Canadian provinces and American states. All 10 provinces rank at the bottom of the list, meaning that the average employee in a U. S. state is at the bottom of the list. The U. S. earns a higher salary than their counterparts in the Canadian province.
The National Bank reports that since 2018, five of Canada’s 18 productive industries have experienced steady negative growth, while the sector as a whole has declined by five per cent. This translates into company closures, loss of investments and reduced wages.
While the Liberals have stood idly by, unmoved by low staff salaries and Canada’s sharp economic decline, one area in which they have managed to grow beyond all expectations is the government itself. Since Justin Trudeau became prime minister, the federal level has risen through 43 consistent with the penny, and the government’s appetite for new systems and deficit spending knows no bounds.
The most blatant example of the disconnect between a government that is out of touch with the daily struggles of Canadians is the carbon tax. It continues to ratchet up, punishing Canadians who are struggling to pay for rent, mortgages, gas and groceries.
Further policy errors come with the collapse of our fitness system, which now has an average waiting time of 30 weeks for a solution after being referred through a GP, and the rise in street crime, due to Ottawa’s experiment in legalizing property. and capture of hard drugs. -and bail policies.
As a nation, the Trudeau government has made us less bold, less determined, less certain and less ambitious.
So, yes, a large majority of Canadians rightly feel that the country is broken. We are in desperate need of renewal in Canada, with a prime minister who has fresh ideas, a commonsense approach to charting a path to prosperity and who governs with a focus on making paycheques go further, communities safer and government less pervasive.
Pierre Poilievre is that leader, and the best opportunity for Canada to once again live up to its potential.
National Post Office
Chris Gardner is president and CEO of the Independent Business and Contractor Association of British Columbia.
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