Raquel Dancho
Kildonan—St. Paul, Manitoba · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, despite big promises from the Prime Minister to bring generational economic change and move at speeds never before seen, our small businesses, the backbone of the Canadian economy, are struggling under this high-tax, big-deficit-spending Liberal government.”
“Mr. Speaker, “from a position of strength”, she said. According to Statistics Canada, business capital investment has declined for five quarters in a row. Entrepreneurship is at a 25-year low and we are now in a recession. These are the devastating results under the Liberal Prime Minister .”
“(1610) There are a number of other rulings as well in recent years that have us really just questioning the morality we are seeing in this country and, again, the judicial activism. For example, two years ago, in R. v.”
“This really emphasizes the trend in this country of judicial activism and concessions by the Liberal government to that, and would undermine Parliament's role in setting sentencing policy. Ultimately, it would allow courts to impose sentences below mandatory minimums set by the House.”
“I thank my colleague for the question, Mr. Speaker. [ English ] I appreciate it. Again, I outlined in my speech a number of things we like in this bill, a number of things we have put forward and advocated for.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a bit rich to hear any of that coming from Liberal members. What we are fixated on is rights for women against their abusers. For example, there was my bill from a few years ago that was from the Senate, from Senator Boisvenu. In that bill, there was the opportunity for a peace bond for two years.”
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“If Canada cannot build, own and control these capabilities, we become dependent on other countries for functions essential to our sovereignty, which is something Canadians have become acutely aware of in recent months. That is why space, for example, is a powerful indicator of what Canada must and can in fact do better. As shadow minister for industry, I have seen these capabilities first-hand. I have toured Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg, where skilled Manitobans build critical components for the world's best fighter jet, the F-35. Here in Ottawa I visited Mission Control, a Canadian company developing lunar rover capability. It is quite amazing.”
“More than half of industry-directed intellectual property generated at Canadian universities is owned abroad, for example, which is pretty shocking. Once intellectual property leaves, it rarely comes back, which means other countries are being enriched by our talented idea creators. This problem is especially clear in strategic industries like space and aerospace. These are not “nice to have” science projects; they are critical in the domestic and international terrain that we are seeing changing at a geopolitical level today. They underpin communications, navigation, wildfire monitoring, Arctic domain awareness, disaster response and national defence, and they are central to NORAD modernization and allied security.”
“It is in fact about whether workers have the capital and the advanced technologies to produce more and work less to create more value more easily. Right now Canada's productivity is trailing that of the U.S. by 30%, and the gap is widening. Canadians can work just as hard and be just as educated, and still fall behind because our system does not support investment and scale, and that is where innovation policy becomes central. It is not because Canada is lacking ideas; we have so many ideas and much talent, but we are lacking focus and ownership over those ideas, especially in the long term. Governments announce many programs, launch consultations and publish frameworks, but our outcomes have not improved. For example, Canada ranks last in the G7 for turning innovation inputs into economic outputs.”
“The link between innovation policy and everyday life is, of course, productivity, which we hear a lot about these days from economists. The Bank of Canada, for example, has been clear that Canada's productivity problem has reached emergency levels. Governor Tiff Macklem warned that unless we change course, Canada's standard of living will be lower than it otherwise would have been. We will be poorer if we do not change course, which is a pretty drastic message from the Bank of Canada governor. (1145) The deputy governor, Nicolas Vincent, reminded us that Canada's affordability problem is fundamentally a productivity problem, because the only sustainable way to raise incomes in this country is to raise our productivity. However, productivity is not about working harder, which I think is what a lot of people think when they hear that word.”
“They want to scale in Canada, and they want to hire more Canadian workers, but our system is working against them. In fact, Canada has well over 100 federal innovation programs spread across various departments and agencies. Of course, each was created with good intentions by some minister, but together they form a system that is busy without being very strategic. They are not aligned. They seem very generous, but in fact, they are not disciplined at all toward a strategic goal. Governments measure success by announcements and spending, by how many press releases they do, not by whether Canadians can pay their bills, afford their mortgages or have confidence that their children will have more opportunities and a better life than they do.”
“When we talk about sovereignty in 2026, it is not just about our borders or our territory. Innovation sovereignty comes down to three things: who owns the patents, who controls the data and who builds the capabilities here at home. Whoever owns those things owns the future tax base, owns the high-skilled jobs and leverages that in our trade negotiations, for example. That all goes together. Without sovereignty and innovation, we cannot be sovereign in our economy. I have spent the last eight months as Canada's industry critic meeting innovators across this country: builders in aerospace, advanced manufacturing, AI, robotics, defence and advancing technologies. Their message is remarkably consistent regarding the problems that Canada is facing.”
“They reduce incentives for firms to reinvest and grow domestically here at home. For many Canadian start-ups, the problem is not that they want to leave Canada, but the gravitational pull of a faster, larger American economy, one that actively attracts talent, capital, and intellectual property and jobs, is just too inviting. With government inertia in this country, it is just too tempting to go down there, where it is more rewarding in many ways. Keeping innovation in Canada is not just an academic exercise for discussion. Our Canadian innovation is our economic power. It determines whether Canadians earn high wages. It determines whether our communities grow or are hollowed out, and whether this country controls the industries that underpin its security and prosperity.”
“At the most important stage, when firms need to scale, when they should be growing into companies with hundreds, if not thousands, of employees with good-paying jobs, Canada's business environment too often nudges them toward selling, relocating or being absorbed by larger foreign competitors. We fund the discovery here, but the long-term prosperity goes elsewhere. Time and time again, this is happening. This is not an accident. It is a predictable outcome of a policy environment that is fragmented, slow and largely indifferent to the results that it funds. The Business Council of Alberta has noted the problem with high taxes on capital combined with regulatory friction. We hear this all the time from our business leaders: High taxes and high regulation are the biggest problem in Canada.”
“That is why I want to focus my remarks today on a critical part of our motion: protecting Canadian innovation and requiring the Minister of Industry to present plans to Parliament to keep Canada's inventions, discoveries and innovations from being sold off to other countries. Right now, Canada is not building enough national champions. We are too often building sales listings, for example, that other countries come and take their pick of. Canadian taxpayers fund the research that trains the talent and creates highly valuable ideas and inventions. In other words, that is Canada's intellectual property.”
“Canada became, in fact, the third spacefaring nation in world history in 1962 with the Alouette-1. We became a world leader in space robotics with the Canadarm in the 1980s, so trusted that this innovation in robotics became indispensable to our allies. Today, through our contributions to the Artemis program, particularly Canadarm3 for the lunar Gateway, Canada has secured astronaut flights and meaningful roles in the next era of space exploration. Let me say this clearly at the outset of this debate today on our important opposition motion on sovereignty, and economic sovereignty therein. Canada can build, we can invest, and we can lead. However, there is a hard truth in this. Too often, we are not translating our capability into lasting national strength.”
“Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga . In the coming months, the world will be watching a mission to space called Artemis II, the first crewed flight of NASA's Artemis program, that will fly around the moon. It is an incredible time to be alive, that we can witness this iconic moment of human innovation in real time. For Canada, this is not just another launch. It is a national moment. For the first time, a Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, will fly as part of the crew. Canadian space robotics will be part of this visionary pursuit, and Canada's role will, once again, prove something we already know: When this country sets a clear objective and aligns its talent, capital, innovation and institutions behind it, we can compete with anyone. We have done this before.”
“If the Liberals really meant it, there would be multi-billion dollar investments for energy in order to fuel the energy pull millions of electric vehicles are going to need. Again, we are talking about 23.6 million light-duty vehicles on the road today. If each one of them required a plug-in every night, that is 27 kilowatt hours per car per year. We are talking about 64 terawatt hours of energy, new energy that is going to be needed, which is really equivalent to 6.4 million Canadian homes or the electricity consumption of the entire province of Alberta. No one is telling us how that is going to happen. It is unrealistic.”
“Mr. Chair, I am not experienced enough to be able to answer that because I just cannot figure it out. The auto sector is asking, please, for the love of God, to give up this EV mandate and to stop forcing it to make something no one will buy that is going to cost the industry billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs, if not 100,000 jobs, as some estimates show. I do not know why the Liberals are not letting this go. It does not make sense. I appreciate seeing an organic increase of use in electric vehicles. I will just close with this in my remaining minute: The energy use required to power an entire light-duty fleet in Canada is enormous. When we talk about being forced to buy electric vehicles, we also have to talk about the lack of energy infrastructure investments in this budget.”
“We can really help meet world emissions reduction targets with Canadian gas. I am very proud of the tax revenue it provides, including to Quebec, for our hospitals, our schools and our infrastructure. I think we all should be proud of oil and gas. I have nothing against electric vehicles, but I just do not want to be forced to buy one.”
“Mr. Chair, I do not think anyone on the Conservative side is opposed to electric vehicles. Again, we are opposed to being forced to buy something that may not work for our families. We very much, as the member has outlined quite clearly, to give him credit, have been the enthusiastic and most passionate supporters in this House of our oil and gas sector. I do not see how those two things do not go together. One of them in particular has ensured we have an incredible quality of life in Canada. In fact, I will note that for the gas sector, if only we could export more of our liquefied natural gas to countries that use coal and other means that have far more emissions, it would be amazing to help lower world emissions with Canadian gas. I do not know why the member does not support that.”
“Again, we need well over 373,000 new charging ports in 10 years, which means 98 a day to the cost of over $100 billion. That is nowhere in the budget. The government is not even committing to that. It is unrealistic.”
“Mr. Chair, we do not have time in the night to say why we are opposed to this. I appreciate electric vehicles. I hope to own one one day, but I do not want to be forced to have one if it does not meet the needs and the budget of my family. I also do not want the auto sector being put out of business because it is being forced to make something no one is buying, and that if it makes what people want to buy, it is going to have to pay a $20,000-compliance credit that is going to go to enrich companies like Tesla. I have nothing against Tesla, which is a great company, but I would rather that money stay in Canada. I can go at length, if the Chair will let me, about some of the logistical problems. I did ask the member earlier about the plan to meet the logistical needs of this electric vehicle mandate.”
“None of this is recognizing the limitations of the electric vehicle sector and it is not helping the auto sector. We have heard this loud and clear. If we, as Conservatives, were in charge right now, one of the first things we would do to give the auto sector some relief is end the electric vehicle mandate. I hope the government hears our pleas today and follows through on that.”
“At committee, we have heard loud and clear, from every part of the auto sector, that one of the top things we can give them is some relief by throwing, into the dustbins of history, the electric vehicle mandate from the Liberal government. The damage that it will do to the Canadian economy, to the auto sector, is extensive. We are predicting 100,000 job losses and up to $3 billion being drained from the Canadian auto sector to companies like Tesla to reach compliance credits. It is really just an insurmountable barrier in the sense that the Liberals want 100% of new vehicle sales by 2030 to be electric, when right now we are looking at only 14%. This fails to acknowledge all the diverse needs of the Canadian economy, whether it is rural or urban needs, or whether someone needs a work truck.”
“For the foreseeable future, arguably, it would seem that we are going to be in this situation. We are just starting to see the job losses and the impacts on our communities. I am very concerned about where we are going to be a year from now if we are not delivered a deal that we were promised as Canadians. I think it begs the question, what can we do? What is within our sovereign control, within our own domestic economy that we can control? Obviously, we cannot control the U.S. President. That seems clear. At least the Prime Minister cannot and he cannot deliver a deal. We have to look at what we can control.”
“Time is ticking by, job loss after job loss, yet we have not seen the results we were promised by the Liberals in the last election. They ran on the fact that they felt they were the best to take on Mr. Trump, that they would be elbows up and that they would get a good deal for Canada, yet we have seen no such trade deal. In fact, something that is deeply concerning to me as the industry critic is that I have not heard a whisper that there is an auto sector deal on the horizon. The Liberals are not talking to the public and they are not telling us in committee that they are even close to getting an auto sector deal. I think that is very concerning and it should give no confidence to anyone that they are going to be able to deliver. Otherwise, they would be talking about progress that they are making; they are not.”
“He tightened a lot of these rules, and that is having such an impact that week after week, we are seeing layoffs and shift reductions. These are not just numbers. These are people. These are entire communities that are built on an ecosystem of the auto sector. We are talking about mechanics and car dealerships. The whole universe that works around this is being shaken to its core because of the ongoing trade war. It is important to know that we have been hearing about this from Mr. Trump for nearly a year. It is coming up on a year since he was sworn in; I believe it is January. Of course, the new Liberal leader and Prime Minister will be coming up on his one-year anniversary in a few months as well. We have been battling this trade war for quite some time.”
“Access, of course, to the American market is critical to the lifeblood of the Canadian auto sector. It is very reciprocal. We know some cars go back and forth about nine times before they are fully completed. It is a very important relationship that really adds to our proud history of production in this sector in Canada that Conservatives are very proud to support. Unfortunately, we know, under the Trump administration 2.0, there has been some tougher enforcement, we could say, around some of the trade rules and tariff measures between the two countries, so much so that it is costing the Canadian economy dearly. It is costing us hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in several towns and cities that are protecting and producing these cars for Canada and for world consumption. Again, Trump 2.0 came in.”
“Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time. Canada has an incredible history in the auto sector. For over 100 years, we have been building world-class automobiles. We have had generations of families working in the auto sector. In fact, it has built incredible communities of longevity like Windsor, Brampton, Ingersoll, Oshawa, Sainte-Thérèse and many others in Quebec and Ontario. It has gotten to the point where it produces over $14 billion worth of GDP. It is incredible what the auto sector provides for the Canadian economy and for opportunities. Over 600,000 Canadians work in direct and indirect jobs from the auto sector. We produce about 1.3 million vehicles annually. Well over a million vehicles are built by Canadian hands in Canada. We export 70% to 90% of them, most notably to the United States.”
“Mr. Chair, I appreciate the historical context of this important trade discussion we are having in the House of Commons concerning the impact on the auto sector. I want to ask the member a logistical question about the implementation of the government's electric vehicle mandate. By 2030, it wants 100% of new vehicle sales to be electric vehicles. From what we know, Canada currently has about 37,000 public charging ports, but in order to accommodate that EV mandate by 2030, we need 373,000 new chargers, which means we have to build 98 per day for the next 10 years straight. Each one costs approximately $300,000, or more if it is in rural and northern regions. We are talking about 98 per day for 10 years straight at a $112-billion price tag. I was not familiar if that was anywhere in the budget or had been discussed.”
“Mr. Chair, again, on the EV mandates, last year in Canada only 14% of the two million vehicles bought new in Canada were EVs. That actually saw a drop of 43% year-over-year this past September, so I would like to ask the member about the logistics of hitting his targets. From what we understand, in order to hit just the government's 2027 target of 23% required EV sales for new vehicles, EV sales would need to rise over 250% within just 13 months from now. Ultimately, out of all the cars that Canada's auto manufacturing plants make, 95% of the vehicles built in Canada today would not be able to be sold under the Liberal EV mandate. I am drawing attention to this question: How are they planning to ensure the survival of our auto sector when people are not buying EVs anywhere close to what the Liberals are demanding with their EV mandate?”
“Mr. Chair, the member mentioned waving a magic wand. There is no easy solution to this trade war, but the government could wave a magic wand, in a sense, and throw the EV mandate into the dustbin of history. We have heard loud and clear at committee from the auto sector that the ZEV, the zero-emission vehicle mandate, or the EV mandate, as we have been calling it, from the Liberals, is extremely detrimental to the auto sector and will cost upward of perhaps 100,000 auto jobs. It will cost the auto sector about $3 billion in compliance credits that will go to Tesla and companies like Tesla. They are pleading with the government to please throw out this mandate, because it is hurting their prospects of success in Canada. Is the member prepared to do so, for the auto sector?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised to protect Canadian jobs, yet the reality is that thousands of Canadian families are now going without their primary source of income because the Liberals have not delivered on their promises. Softwood lumber mills are closing, auto companies are cancelling projects in Canada and moving them to the United States, and now in Sault Ste. Marie, 1,000 people have just lost their jobs at the steel mill. Workers do not need more Liberal platitudes, corporate handouts or broken promises. They need their jobs back. They need results. When are Canadians going to get the trade deal they were promised?”
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Algoma Steel laid off 1,000 workers, and those workers remember when the Liberal Prime Minister stood on their shop floor in Sault Ste. Marie just days before the last election and promised to protect their jobs. Today, those same workers face U.S. tariffs, no deal and now no job. To add insult to injury, the Liberal government just gave Algoma Steel $400 million with no jobs guarantees, apparently, because now there are 1,000 Canadian workers out of a job before Christmas. When will the steelworkers get the promised protection for their jobs from the Liberal government?”
“No faith tradition should fear for the safety of its sacred places, and that is why we support robust protections for places of worship, including measures in Conservative Bill C-255 to hold offenders accountable. As we honour 100 and 200 years of faith and service in our community, let us recommit to safeguarding the places that give Canadians hope and spiritual refuge.”
“Mr. Speaker, this year we celebrate remarkable milestones in Manitoba's faith community: the 100th anniversary of St. Anthony of Padua Parish and St. Mary the Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral, as well as the 200th anniversary of St. Paul's Anglican Church. I am proud to represent all three. For a century, St. Anthony of Padua Parish has strengthened neighbourhoods through compassionate service. St. Mary the Protectress has been a place of belonging for generations of Ukrainian Canadians, and St. Paul's Anglican carries a rich pioneer history sustained through war, hardship and renewal. These contributions reflect what faith communities across Canada do every single day. However, many places of worship continue to face vandalism and arson.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister talked a big game during the election, but he has since failed to deliver on a U.S. trade deal. He has backed down on every Trump demand, from the digital services tax to countertariffs to softwood lumber. He has delivered exactly zero results for Canadians on the U.S. trade war. To be fair, he is seeing some results with his Brookfield shares, with the Americans coincidentally signing an $80-billion nuclear deal with his company a mere two weeks after his last U.S. visit. Why is it that under the current Prime Minister his financial investments are doing so well but Canadian workers are being left behind?”
“Thousands of jobs in steel, autos, forestry and countless other industries are bleeding, and Canada is on the precipice of losing tens of thousands of good-paying Canadian jobs. Who cares? Conservatives care. We are the only ones who will deliver a Canada that is the best place to build and to hire Canadian workers. Only Conservatives will deliver on that promise.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister positioned himself as the so-called man with a plan to save Canada from Mr. Trump. He promised he would deliver a trade deal by July 21, but he failed to deliver on that promise. As a result, Canada is losing thousands of manufacturing jobs. Breaking his promise has real consequences. Businesses are packing up and leaving Canada for greener pastures in the U.S., where there is tariff relief, lower taxes and less regulation. The Prime Minister is treating this issue as if it is irrelevant. He said, “Who cares?” about the negotiations breaking down, and said he does not have “a burning issue to speak with the president about right now”. It is outrageous that the Prime Minister of this country would say that.”
“The Liberals voted that down at the status of women committee, so I need no lecture from the government on fighting for women and the safety of women. We are the only party that would lock up the perpetrators. Time and time again, we have put that forward, but the legislation has been voted down by the Liberals.”
“Mr. Speaker, the reality is that, after 10 years of Liberals and their soft-on-crime policies, we have seen incredible rates of increase with respect to sexual assault and sexual assaults on children in this country. For a lot of that, again, we have to look at the Criminal Code and how the government views the Criminal Code. The Liberals repeatedly, time and time again, go soft on the people who are violating and abusing women. When a woman is abused, she has to somehow get the courage and the safety to go to a judge to ask for a peace bond. I put forward a bill so that peace bonds would last at least two years, so woman would not have to go through it 12 months later. A woman often has kids, has a life and is fighting for her safety.”
“What we would be doing as Conservatives would be to look at how we would create the most business-friendly environment in the world, have companies choose Canada to create all their goods and services and make it so that companies can expand their manufacturing businesses here so that it is more competitive and more efficient to do so than in the U.S. That would be our number one focus during this trade war. Unfortunately, we are not seeing that.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member is hitting on something really important about how the Conservatives would be approaching this situation versus the Liberals. The Liberals look at the economy like it is a big switchboard that they get to control, and if they just turn this knob, pick this industry and dump billions of taxpayer dollars here, or maybe here, but not over there, they will create a prosperous environment. As I outlined, and as many economists have outlined, the Liberals' approach to the economy does not work. We have just seen more of the same in the Liberal lip service toward productivity and a few tweaks around the margins for the business sector.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that the member for Winnipeg North got up to engage me in debate because no one in the House has stood up to say more words defending the Liberal record than that member has over the last decade. No one has defended the Liberals' productivity decline in this country, as well as the policies that have impoverished Canadians and that have sent businesses south, more than that member. I will certainly not take any lessons from him about economics since he, more than anybody else, has stood here for a decade defending their record, which we have had to listen to. Their record is two million people going to food banks and thousands of manufacturing jobs going south.”
“Looking at this, we saw in the last election that the Prime Minister , the Liberal leader, said that he was going to be the one to change this and that he was going to bring forward a transformational budget. We have seen that that is not really the case. The Liberals have made a few tweaks around the margins. Finally, after a decade, they said that productivity is a problem and they want to work on the economy. Thank God, but they have only made a few tweaks around the margins. The only party that is going to make the transformation to the regulatory and taxation burden we have in this country so Canada can have a better standard of living is the one that has been saying the same thing about this for 10 years, and that is a Conservative majority government.”
“Our regulatory environment needs to be such that, when a business, such as an auto sector business, is saying that it could expand in Canada or in the U.S., it is going to go where the best bottom line for it is. Therefore, it is going to look at where to get the fastest permits, there are the fewest regulatory hurdles and it can make the most profit so it can hire more people and invest in more technology to be more efficient and have more output. Time and time again, long before Trump 2.0 came along, businesses were upping and leaving for the U.S., or rather than expanding here, they were expanding down there. Now that Trump 2.0 has come along, it has exacerbated all of the mess the Liberals created over the last decade, which is impacting the cost of living.”
“He made a new level of bureaucracy to go on top of the disaster of a mountain of bureaucracy they have created, which has made it very difficult to be successful in this country as a large creator of manufacturing or resource development, and the Liberals are going to pick what special companies get to go ahead and skip all the regulatory burdens they have created, which all the other companies are going to have to go over. That is just one example. The Liberals also have the industrial carbon tax, which increases the price of energy on Canada's largest manufacturers. It is more expensive to make steel here because of things like the industrial carbon tax. Again, our taxes need to be competitive.”
“This country has not, in essence, had a raise since 2014, despite all of the inflation. That is one way to understand the magnitude of what we are facing under 10 years of really poor economic performance led by government policies at the federal level. We see things like, infamously, the Liberals' Bill C-69 , which I think really shows what the government is about. The Liberals have made it incredibly hard to build large projects. They have denied this for a long time. We have been banging this Bill C-69 drum, but it was really proven in large measure by the new Liberal leader, the new Prime Minister of Canada, governing the same bunch of Liberals who have been voting on these policies for over a decade.”
“The Business Council of Canada said, “Businesses across every sector, from natural resources to housing to finance, rank regulation as the single biggest barrier to new investment in Canada.” Regulation is a big factor of why we are not producing as efficiently as other countries, predominantly the United States, which is our largest competitor. Again, why is this? We have seen the results over the last 10 years. As I have said, under Liberal governance, the country's productivity has been relatively flat. If we think of Canada as one worker, we would think that, over time, we work hard and hope our wages would go up. That is mostly the career trajectory of the average working Canadian. It is as if Canada, as a worker, has somehow not had a raise, improved their productivity, gained more experience or created more value since 2014.”
“That is how much it would generate economic growth and productivity. As we have heard from the Bank of Canada, when we increase our productivity, we increase our incomes and the standard of living for Canadians. Why is our productivity suffering so much? It is not from a lack of effort, innovation, enterprise or education. One of the main causes is the regulatory burden. Companies spend at least $51 billion a year meeting regulatory requirements, according to the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada. He said that at industry committee, where we are currently studying productivity.”
“It is as if the person beside them is working on modern computer technology, with AI, virtual calling and a smartphone. They have all of those things. This person can be just as smart as them and work just as hard as they do, but they are trying to do the same job with dial-up Internet on a 1990s computer. That is the reality when we talk about investing in our workforce and what we are up against with the behemoth that is the U.S. (1140) We used to be more on par with investments per worker. Our productivity used to be a lot closer, but now the U.S. is leaps and bounds ahead of us, especially after the last 10 years. It is so bad that, if we were to just catch up to where the Americans are in productivity, our individual per capita GDP, or per capita output into the economy, would be $20,000 higher per worker in Canada.”
“Obviously, they are our biggest buyer for our trade, but they are also our biggest competitor when it comes to businesses selecting where they are going to build factories, hire more workers and where they are going to innovate. The U.S. is our biggest competitor. Our productivity is 30% lower than that of the U.S., and in real U.S. manufacturing, the construction investment has been up over 300% since 2008. Canada's has been flat since that time. We are competing against a country that is investing 300% more in real manufacturing than we are. U.S. firms invest triple what Canadian firms do. A Canadian firm is investing about $4,100 per worker annually in our workforce, and the U.S. is investing over $12,800 per worker annually. For people to understand, let us say someone works in an office and everyone works on their computers.”
“Nicolas Vincent, external deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, said, “Canada’s affordability problem is really a productivity problem. [If we want] to make things more affordable, we need to raise our income. And the way to grow our income is by increasing productivity.” It is mission critical that we fix this productivity problem, and the results are very stark. In fact, after 10 years of Liberal government and the way that they have approached the economy, we have had very poor results when it comes to productivity. In fact, it has barely grown at all since the Liberals have been in power. We often compete with the U.S.”
“He is telling Canadians and parliamentarians that we should all be very concerned about this, and that we are going to be poorer as a country if we keep going down this trajectory. Of course, there are world factors in that, such as the trade war, but many of these issues existed long before Trump 2.0 ever came along. We saw this a year and a half ago, in March 2024, when the senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers, said about productivity that it is an emergency, and “it's time to break the glass.” It is time to sound the fire alarm. It is time to evacuate because the productivity is so bad. How does this relate to everyday people? What most people think when we say that we have a productivity problem is, “What, do I have to work harder?” That is not what it means.”
“We have heard, and I have heard, from business leaders, economists and the Bank of Canada that productivity is one of the number one issues when it comes to the standard of living in Canada, and it is in a crisis. In fact, Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada, said last month what is most concerning is that, “unless we change some other things, our standard of living as a country, Canadians, is going to be lower than it otherwise would have been”. When he was talking at the press conference, giving this update about the Canadian economy, he said the standard of living was going to be up, but now it is going to be lower. We are going to be poorer, and this is out of the mouth of the Bank of Canada governor.”