I was searching around for some worthwhile comments on the Canadian budget to share tonight, and mostly I found shallow "takes" about d'Entremont crossing the floor and about how dull the budget was. What, from Carney they expected bread and circuses?
It was low-key pizzazz. really.
But this summary by CBC business reporter Peter Armstrong was good:
And I did find this good column by Justin Ling:
And I did find this good column by Justin Ling:
Make no mistake, this is Mark Carney’s Trump budget. It’s also missing one big thing
...The budget, tabled Tuesday, takes Trump’s big beautiful bill head-on with a plan to make Canada a better investment destination than the United States. One part of the plan even has an appropriately Trumpian name: the “Productivity Super-Deduction.”
It may be wonky tax policy, but it is the opening salvo of active economic competition between Canada and America.
....this budget is fundamentally about America and the very strong likelihood that things are going to get worse. Canada has a very short runway to boost productivity, lift up domestic industry, find new trading partners and entice investment before we face the possibility of a much deeper decoupling.
Next year, Washington and Ottawa will meet to talk about our Free Trade Agreement — negotiations that the budget charitably calls “a likely complex review.” Left unsaid is that Trump is determined to force sectoral tariffs into that agreement, meant to protect American manufacturing, and that he may exit the deal if he doesn’t get his way. Either way, the demise of our big, beautiful trade deal could unravel supply chains and drive economic degrowth in a way that we have not seen in quite some time.
With that in mind, every page of this budget fits into the context of this looming threat...
....In many ways, Carney has many of the same objectives as Trump — reboot manufacturing, recapitalize our military, reverse declining productivity, win strategic competition, master new technologies, and so on. Trump wants to achieve these things by shaking down his investors and kneecapping his competitors. We want to do it through playing by the rules.
It’s the right strategy in the long term. Trump’s gangster economics will eventually lose their lustre, and Canada should play the altruistic foil. But in the short term, Trump will probably succeed. And missing from this budget is an acknowledgment of that fact.
As the eternally-cheery Champagne wrapped up his remarks, he offered a bit of analysis that seems at odds with the state of the world. “We’re going to be OK,” he proclaimed. He then repeated it again as he tried to convince the country — and perhaps himself. “We’re going to be OK.”
.jpg)
