I'm hoping this is the moment that people start to realize that Mark Carney isn't the World's Smartest Economist as we were sold and most Canadians apparently believed without asking for a shred of evidence, but a con artist running a continuation of the Trudeau era.
The only data point I needed to confirm the latter was the continuation of the gun "buy-back". If you don't have the courage to end something that patently absurd, wasteful, divisive and offensive, you're not the serious government the media sold us.
This government and our illustrious Prime Minister will do anything and everything EXCEPT repeal onerous regulations and cut red tape and get out of the way. This is not a rhetorical statement, it is a simple fact.
The Trudeau Liberals liked to respond to complaints that they hobbled the energy industry with "we built you the Transmountain Pipeline with public money!" Yes, but they neglect to mention (or perhaps don't understand) that public money was necessary because regulatory and legal dysfunction caused the private sector proponent to walk away.
Not only did the Trudeau government end up paying for something that should've been built with private money, the final government-run project ended up costing $30.9 billion vs. the Kinder-Morgan initial estimate of $5.9 billion. Big projects like this can easily exceed their budget: this pipelines crosses mountainous terrain, there were torrential floods in 2021, but a lot of cost increase seems to fall under "project enhancements". Those *don't* seem to have been aimed at mitigating risks of the project that were the pretext for many of the legal challenges.
This "sovereign wealth fund" seems like an acknowledgement by the Liberals that big infrastructure projects are required, but they can't figure out how to streamline the regulatory process without driving a split right through their party. They also can't expect private sector proponents to bear the risk, particularly when the government can't resist larding up such projects with superfluous spending or maintain cost discipline. Finally, I suspect that this is probably a hack-y way to try to keep a mountain of new debt off the government books, an acknowledgement that the public debt is already reaching unsustainable levels.
Sigh. Another bureaucracy. Every one launched with an obscene budget and no performance metrics. The money is spent but nobody can tell the PBO how. Start another one.
This is how $80B has disappeared down the housing rabbit hole in the last 10 years. Even AI can only shrug if you ask how many houses were built.
I do think this is actually a good idea, but I also do think we should collapse some of the other delivery models. That being said, I have a couple gripes about the article.
Industry leaders "Canada’s leading industry groups say Prime Minister Mark Carney’s effort to cut red tape is floundering, costing the country billions more in trade losses than US President Donald Trump’s tariffs." - This is literally what the business community ALWAYS says. The problem is, they're probably right. Why? Because the default position of business is to prefer NO regulation. So of course they’re being strangled. Note that these businesses seldom mark specific regulations? Or when they do it’s huge, swathes of legislation. Why? because in many cases the regulations in place that they want removed, are the ones that hold back often predatory business practices; and they look south at the wild west that the US is, and wish they could do it here too. I loath the idea of giving up many of the things we value in exchange for a US-like regulatory environment. But, that's also the core tension, because the regulation is indeed also strangling us. That being said, I think there’s a real argument to be made that our system is too complex, and needs to be simplified. I read about how in the state of New York, one congressman used an AI Chatbot, loaded it with the entire body of the state's law's and just asked the LLM to find the duplicative and out of date portions; and he put in a bill to remove those things. We should start with that before we go caving to modern robber barons to abandon our restrictions on their behaviors.
Second "If a given infrastructure project is not being developed, it is likely because the private sector has determined that it is not economically feasible, or too risky due to onerous regulatory restrictions." - That's a pretty WILD take that completely casts aside the very role of the federal government. It is the governments fundamental JOB to provide basic infrastructure, NOT the private sector. It isn't business's role to build a new road through the NWT, it's the government's. Why? because that should be public use infrastructure that enables ALL types of businesses and acts as a backbone for growth; not private venture controlled by an entity that picks who gets to access their road. We had to build the entire Gordie Howe Bridge because a business tycoon had a monopoly on a key piece of major infrastructure. Besides, by that logic of "If it's not being develop it's clearly not worth it" I doubt we would ever have built the St. Lawrence Seaway, or the Trans Canada Highway. Sometimes we need to build things because they have value outside of money (Pride, security, because its the right thing to do, etc.) that isn't as easy to see; private capital would never build those either. What if we applied that logic to homes right now? Many businesses are struggling to make money off of building home, does that mean that they’re not worth building? It’s such a wildly simplistic and narrow logic.
Overall though, I'm tired of the government just being a financier in the background, just an entity that sets the board and hopes someone else makes the moves. The government needs to take a LEADING role in big infrastructure projects, including proposing them, championing them, managing them; especially those that have value outside of simple ROI.
Ahh..the Kleptocracy takes another leap into national prominence. We thought JT turned our beautiful country into a shit hole. Wait until the “great economist” is done with it. The Chavitas will be very proud.
I thought a country needed to have excess sovereign wealth to have a sovereign wealth fund. Had I known that you don't need any money to do it, I could have turned my credit card into sovereign wealth fund years ago. That just shows what a dope I am, I suppose.
Ahh, but the ‘people’ (spoken in Bane’s voice) pointed their elbows at the liberals, so it’s all above board for their fiscal malfeasance. You would simply go to jail.
Mark Carney said they would “recycle “ assets. Is that code for asset stripping ? Isn’t this what Mark Carney’s corporate history has taught him to do?
The Canadian government struggles to find a path forward because it assumes another program or agency will fix the poorly identified problem the last one didn't solve, but which will continue in fucking perpetuity because no one in the GoC has the cajones to call bullshit and rip out redundancy.
The GoC has been cutting red tape for years, unfortunately like the GoA has been since 2019, they are cutting it lengthwise creating mobius strips that mesmerize everyone and become the work.
I’m cautiously optimistic. A debt-capitalized sovereign wealth fund is so dumb and so downright magical that people are bound to see through it, eventually. Either that, or it’ll blow up like the Green Slush Fund before it. Like, even if the federal government could borrow at preferentially low rates, the government would simply use those funds to build infrastructure directly. That is, take on debt to build a railroad, with the idea that the railroad would eventually pay for itself (and the financing costs) via improved growth and thus tax revenue. Sure, the CBC will cheerlead for the sovereign debt fund, till it’s dying day. But I refuse to believe that everyone else is as stupid.
Remind us again which party has been re-elected three times in a row now, with absolutely nothing to show for it, and please revisit your assumptions on the bell curve intelligence placement of a majority of our fellow Canadians.
Great column explaining the spin cycle (not media spin although that will inevitably be part of it ) this country is going through trying to do projects. We are going to stay in this endless loop of creating yet more expensive and duplicate bureaucracy until
the governments at all levels get the hell out of the way and let investors create projects and build houses and all those other things instead of a) virtue signaling climate and ESG at the expense of reality
b) putting ludicrous development fees on housing
c) forcing project developers/ investors to jump through endless, arcane, bureaucratic hoops
If a supposed economic genius and saviour like Carney can’t see the forest for the trees - which he’s adding to - at this time where he has carte blanche to actually do something productive and the best he can do is create a Major Projects Office and now taking a $25 fucking billion loan to create a sovereign wealth fund. I am old enough to remember and lived in Alberta when we actually had a sovereign wealth fund one that was based on royalties (like Norway) it was great while it lasted
The purpose of the country is to pay for a bureaucracy, but truly wealthy elites must also benefit, lest they stir up unrest. Borrowing to create a fund used to build uneconomic projects with massive rakeoffs for insiders is an excellent way to pre-spend the money so that a future government can't do anything about it.
A thousand times this. I don't want to hear another word about Orange Man and those brutish Americans screwing us over until we start seeing some tangible indicators that we are getting our own act together. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back for me.
Relatedly, Rudyard Griffiths and Sean Speer had a good podcast at The Hub last week discussing the very real possibility that the insane worldview of so many of our compatriots is going to help take us right over the edge of the cliff - with those same compatriots cheering it on all the way.
"But I come back to that other question. What problem are we trying to solve here?"
...the GOAL seems to be to Borrow and spend as MUCH taxpayer money as possible, as QUICKLY as possible. Once you see it through this lens, you can't unsee it.
His every action has been "I'm borrowing this money, so that you will have prosperity".
But , you know, ...later. At some point. Not soon.
It could take three or four more terms before you start to see a flicker....
Getting to the bottom of teh problem as you ask Matt, may actually mean or require the political class to do their freakin job, wouldn't that be something to see!
The problem we are trying to solve here is that there is some wealth in this country that is, as yet, unlooted by Liberal cronies and clients.
Canadians are a fantastically honest, clever, and hardworking people. Stealing everything they built is a big job.
I'm hoping this is the moment that people start to realize that Mark Carney isn't the World's Smartest Economist as we were sold and most Canadians apparently believed without asking for a shred of evidence, but a con artist running a continuation of the Trudeau era.
The only data point I needed to confirm the latter was the continuation of the gun "buy-back". If you don't have the courage to end something that patently absurd, wasteful, divisive and offensive, you're not the serious government the media sold us.
If we steal from the government it’s called a felony but if the government steals from us it’s called politics.
This is Matt Gurney at his best.
Well-done.
This government and our illustrious Prime Minister will do anything and everything EXCEPT repeal onerous regulations and cut red tape and get out of the way. This is not a rhetorical statement, it is a simple fact.
Well said! Too many ideologies and vested interests in the system.
The Trudeau Liberals liked to respond to complaints that they hobbled the energy industry with "we built you the Transmountain Pipeline with public money!" Yes, but they neglect to mention (or perhaps don't understand) that public money was necessary because regulatory and legal dysfunction caused the private sector proponent to walk away.
Not only did the Trudeau government end up paying for something that should've been built with private money, the final government-run project ended up costing $30.9 billion vs. the Kinder-Morgan initial estimate of $5.9 billion. Big projects like this can easily exceed their budget: this pipelines crosses mountainous terrain, there were torrential floods in 2021, but a lot of cost increase seems to fall under "project enhancements". Those *don't* seem to have been aimed at mitigating risks of the project that were the pretext for many of the legal challenges.
This "sovereign wealth fund" seems like an acknowledgement by the Liberals that big infrastructure projects are required, but they can't figure out how to streamline the regulatory process without driving a split right through their party. They also can't expect private sector proponents to bear the risk, particularly when the government can't resist larding up such projects with superfluous spending or maintain cost discipline. Finally, I suspect that this is probably a hack-y way to try to keep a mountain of new debt off the government books, an acknowledgement that the public debt is already reaching unsustainable levels.
Careful, or you'll get Max Fawcett off on another of his rants....
Sigh. Another bureaucracy. Every one launched with an obscene budget and no performance metrics. The money is spent but nobody can tell the PBO how. Start another one.
This is how $80B has disappeared down the housing rabbit hole in the last 10 years. Even AI can only shrug if you ask how many houses were built.
And yet we still insist on assuming good intentions. Why?
Another bureaucracy because other cronies, or their wives/partners need a cushy job.
AtkinsRealis (SNC) and their ilk can't turn a profit any other way.
These are the talking points for Carney’s friends who are getting the good paying jobs.
Taking point 1: I don’t see a conflict in this appointment
Talking point 2: I expressed a willingness to serve the country
Talking point 3: I have the experience and ability to help our country, and I feel an obligation to do so.
Talking point 4: use variations of these themes until you can escape any questioning about your dubious appointment by Carney.
I do think this is actually a good idea, but I also do think we should collapse some of the other delivery models. That being said, I have a couple gripes about the article.
Industry leaders "Canada’s leading industry groups say Prime Minister Mark Carney’s effort to cut red tape is floundering, costing the country billions more in trade losses than US President Donald Trump’s tariffs." - This is literally what the business community ALWAYS says. The problem is, they're probably right. Why? Because the default position of business is to prefer NO regulation. So of course they’re being strangled. Note that these businesses seldom mark specific regulations? Or when they do it’s huge, swathes of legislation. Why? because in many cases the regulations in place that they want removed, are the ones that hold back often predatory business practices; and they look south at the wild west that the US is, and wish they could do it here too. I loath the idea of giving up many of the things we value in exchange for a US-like regulatory environment. But, that's also the core tension, because the regulation is indeed also strangling us. That being said, I think there’s a real argument to be made that our system is too complex, and needs to be simplified. I read about how in the state of New York, one congressman used an AI Chatbot, loaded it with the entire body of the state's law's and just asked the LLM to find the duplicative and out of date portions; and he put in a bill to remove those things. We should start with that before we go caving to modern robber barons to abandon our restrictions on their behaviors.
Second "If a given infrastructure project is not being developed, it is likely because the private sector has determined that it is not economically feasible, or too risky due to onerous regulatory restrictions." - That's a pretty WILD take that completely casts aside the very role of the federal government. It is the governments fundamental JOB to provide basic infrastructure, NOT the private sector. It isn't business's role to build a new road through the NWT, it's the government's. Why? because that should be public use infrastructure that enables ALL types of businesses and acts as a backbone for growth; not private venture controlled by an entity that picks who gets to access their road. We had to build the entire Gordie Howe Bridge because a business tycoon had a monopoly on a key piece of major infrastructure. Besides, by that logic of "If it's not being develop it's clearly not worth it" I doubt we would ever have built the St. Lawrence Seaway, or the Trans Canada Highway. Sometimes we need to build things because they have value outside of money (Pride, security, because its the right thing to do, etc.) that isn't as easy to see; private capital would never build those either. What if we applied that logic to homes right now? Many businesses are struggling to make money off of building home, does that mean that they’re not worth building? It’s such a wildly simplistic and narrow logic.
Overall though, I'm tired of the government just being a financier in the background, just an entity that sets the board and hopes someone else makes the moves. The government needs to take a LEADING role in big infrastructure projects, including proposing them, championing them, managing them; especially those that have value outside of simple ROI.
Ahh..the Kleptocracy takes another leap into national prominence. We thought JT turned our beautiful country into a shit hole. Wait until the “great economist” is done with it. The Chavitas will be very proud.
I thought a country needed to have excess sovereign wealth to have a sovereign wealth fund. Had I known that you don't need any money to do it, I could have turned my credit card into sovereign wealth fund years ago. That just shows what a dope I am, I suppose.
Ahh, but the ‘people’ (spoken in Bane’s voice) pointed their elbows at the liberals, so it’s all above board for their fiscal malfeasance. You would simply go to jail.
Mark Carney said they would “recycle “ assets. Is that code for asset stripping ? Isn’t this what Mark Carney’s corporate history has taught him to do?
The Canadian government struggles to find a path forward because it assumes another program or agency will fix the poorly identified problem the last one didn't solve, but which will continue in fucking perpetuity because no one in the GoC has the cajones to call bullshit and rip out redundancy.
The GoC has been cutting red tape for years, unfortunately like the GoA has been since 2019, they are cutting it lengthwise creating mobius strips that mesmerize everyone and become the work.
Not to mention bring endless!
I’m cautiously optimistic. A debt-capitalized sovereign wealth fund is so dumb and so downright magical that people are bound to see through it, eventually. Either that, or it’ll blow up like the Green Slush Fund before it. Like, even if the federal government could borrow at preferentially low rates, the government would simply use those funds to build infrastructure directly. That is, take on debt to build a railroad, with the idea that the railroad would eventually pay for itself (and the financing costs) via improved growth and thus tax revenue. Sure, the CBC will cheerlead for the sovereign debt fund, till it’s dying day. But I refuse to believe that everyone else is as stupid.
Remind us again which party has been re-elected three times in a row now, with absolutely nothing to show for it, and please revisit your assumptions on the bell curve intelligence placement of a majority of our fellow Canadians.
hehe i said “cautiously” optimistic although i will admit that i do have a optimistic disposition in general
Hear that.. that’s another trillion dollars running away from Canada as fast as it can run. GFC we need a new government.
Great column explaining the spin cycle (not media spin although that will inevitably be part of it ) this country is going through trying to do projects. We are going to stay in this endless loop of creating yet more expensive and duplicate bureaucracy until
the governments at all levels get the hell out of the way and let investors create projects and build houses and all those other things instead of a) virtue signaling climate and ESG at the expense of reality
b) putting ludicrous development fees on housing
c) forcing project developers/ investors to jump through endless, arcane, bureaucratic hoops
If a supposed economic genius and saviour like Carney can’t see the forest for the trees - which he’s adding to - at this time where he has carte blanche to actually do something productive and the best he can do is create a Major Projects Office and now taking a $25 fucking billion loan to create a sovereign wealth fund. I am old enough to remember and lived in Alberta when we actually had a sovereign wealth fund one that was based on royalties (like Norway) it was great while it lasted
The purpose of the country is to pay for a bureaucracy, but truly wealthy elites must also benefit, lest they stir up unrest. Borrowing to create a fund used to build uneconomic projects with massive rakeoffs for insiders is an excellent way to pre-spend the money so that a future government can't do anything about it.
This statement nicely sums up the Canadian gestalt, in a nice neat bow.
A thousand times this. I don't want to hear another word about Orange Man and those brutish Americans screwing us over until we start seeing some tangible indicators that we are getting our own act together. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back for me.
Relatedly, Rudyard Griffiths and Sean Speer had a good podcast at The Hub last week discussing the very real possibility that the insane worldview of so many of our compatriots is going to help take us right over the edge of the cliff - with those same compatriots cheering it on all the way.
"But I come back to that other question. What problem are we trying to solve here?"
...the GOAL seems to be to Borrow and spend as MUCH taxpayer money as possible, as QUICKLY as possible. Once you see it through this lens, you can't unsee it.
His every action has been "I'm borrowing this money, so that you will have prosperity".
But , you know, ...later. At some point. Not soon.
It could take three or four more terms before you start to see a flicker....
Getting to the bottom of teh problem as you ask Matt, may actually mean or require the political class to do their freakin job, wouldn't that be something to see!
For me, it seems likely this will not work. We are not a serious country.