COLUMN: On Parliament Hill – Canada’s lost decade is not Trump’s fault

All of us have encountered moments where we realized, too late, that better preparation would have changed everything. Whether it was walking into an exam without studying, cooking a meal only to realize you had forgotten the main ingredient, or creating a business plan that ignored the obvious. Only in hindsight do we shake our heads in regret.

For a country, the stakes are even more consequential. Choices matter. Vision matters. When the government fails to prepare, Canadians pay the price. This is what happened to Canada from 2015-2025 – a decade which many are now calling “the lost years.”

Instead of focusing on building economic strength and positioning Canada for tougher negotiations with our closest trading partner, we drifted. And when Donald Trump became President of the United States, again, Ottawa cast him as the villain and Canadians as the helpless victims. Mainstream media ran with it, and the Liberal political leaders fed on the outrage. While PM Carney touted his message of “raising elbows”, the Liberals were not raising Canada’s position of strength.

The truth? It wasn’t Trump that weakened Canada; it was years of bad Liberal policy, short-sighted decisions, and the failure to prepare. Canada has become reactive, not proactive.

If we look around, the Canadian dream of working hard, owning a home, raising a family, and living comfortably has slipped further out of reach for many. Just over a decade ago, the New York Times declared Canada’s middle class the wealthiest in the world. Now? Cities like Toronto and Vancouver have become among the most unaffordable housing markets globally. Compared to Chicago, homes in Toronto are 50 percent more expensive, and Chicago residents make more on average. Plain and simple, this is Liberal government failure.

And it doesn’t stop here. Productivity in Canada is sinking. For every $80 an American worker adds to their economy, a Canadian is required to work 60 percent longer for the same output. Inflation is not driven by grocery store ‘greed,’ but by the government’s reckless money printing, which is eroding the value of Canadian paycheques. Many have rightly called it the cruellest tax, as it transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.

Meanwhile, this Liberal government cannot stop spending. Deficits pile up and debt continues to grow. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has projected that just the cost of new government staffing will balloon by a whopping $76.2 billion by 2030.

Further, youth unemployment is now at levels only seen in recessions. Half a trillion dollars in projects have left Canada, with $60 billion leaving during Mark Carney’s tenure alone. Why? Because pipelines were cancelled, natural resources are overregulated, and energy development is stifled.

We import oil and gas that we could produce ourselves. Some of what is produced is shipped south, only to be sold back to us at a much higher price. When Japan, Greece, France and Germany approached the Liberal government for Canadian LNG, the Liberal government shrugged and claimed that there was “no business case” for LNG.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Conservatives are ready and have proposed solutions such as cutting the red tape, repealing growth-killing laws, rewarding builders and unleashing Canadian innovation.

President Donald Trump isn’t the cause of Canada’s decline. He just exposed it. The real problem is over a decade of weak, visionless Liberal policies. “If we want a stronger future, Canada must be proactive, not reactive, after the damage is done. That requires preparation, foresight, and—above all—a government committed to putting Canada first.