As usual, Geezer, another wonderful article! I hope the provinces pay attention to the feds housing plans as the provinces need to step up on their constitutional obligation for housing.
Off topic but it would be great to see an article on housing, energy, food comparisons for similar countries. Certainly, these issues don’t exist solely in Canada.
Justin was a twit but to be fair before he left Trudeau worked on deeper ASEAN ties. Carney was able to continue the work.
As for work, one of Canada's biggest problems is communication with its youth and parents. Guidance in schools has sucked from when I was in high school in the late 80s. I am a career Development Practitioner and guess what. Guidance still sucks.
Let's face it. We are snobs. Many don't want our kids to do the labour. We say we want women to do skilled trades and yet when i was training as a CDP, women told me how badly treated they wore on the job.
And we don't want to bring in people to do it either. We have a war on and the people of India 🇮🇳 the labour got the boot. Yeah, after Indian students got the boot from here. Ridiculous.
We need doctors, nurses and new techs. We need skilled labor. We can to rocket science. We just sent Canadians to the moon.
Kristine, honestly, this may be one of the most grounded comments in the thread.
Because underneath all the politics, a huge part of this comes down to culture and incentives.
For decades we pushed an almost universal message...
university = success
trades = fallback option
Meanwhile society still absolutely depends on electricians, welders, mechanics, nurses, builders, technicians, machinists, and infrastructure workers to function at all.
You’re also right that Canada has talked a big game about skilled trades diversity for years while many workplaces still haven’t caught up culturally.
And yes... the communication failure with young people is massive.
A lot of students still graduate with almost no realistic understanding of where actual labour shortages exist, what trades can earn, or how strategically important those careers are becoming.
That’s partly why the “build again” language matters.
You cannot build housing, energy systems, transit, manufacturing capacity, or infrastructure without skilled people.
At some point countries rediscover that real economies still run on people who know how to physically do things.
Hi Canadians! Would you mind very much if we Australians cloned your Prime Minister please? We need someone like your Mark Carney to help us rebuild our future too. Albo's ok, but he's not brave enough to make the big decisions for us.
I'd like to add that it stopped with Mulroney, then the upward slide of wealth was in high gear with Harper.
I'm encouraged by Carney's plan to rebuild, build out, and most importantly, build with everyday Canadians with the promise that we'll benefit structurally as well as financially.
Stacy, I think that’s exactly what a lot of Canadians are responding to right now...
not perfection, but direction.
For years, the country felt like it was managing problems instead of solving them.
Housing shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks, energy paralysis, productivity decline… everybody could see the cracks, but very little felt ambitious anymore.
What stood out to me in Carney’s speech wasn’t just the “build” language.
It was the ownership language.
That’s new.
Canadians are used to hearing about projects benefiting corporations, pension funds, or foreign investors.
Hearing a Prime Minister openly talk about Canadians themselves sharing in the upside of nation-building projects hits differently.
And you’re right...
“We stopped building” was probably the most important sentence in the entire speech because it acknowledged reality without trying to spin it.
Hard to fix anything until somebody admits the foundation’s cracked.
Very well done Fred!!! Carney is noticing what I have been noticing for a few years now. Thank Ford, & I still like Ford, for certain areas of expertise. We are building 50 units of affordable housing for Sault Ste Marie! Eventually you see the work going up, near the waterfront, then the gut punch!!! This "affordable" housing for working people, units cost $2500.00 & upwards per unit!!! That is not "affordable" housing in a small city, that's a gift horse to people that can afford better, due to the positions they hold! This, while people are still working 2 or 3 parttime positions to survive! THESE are the people that need actual affordable housing! Many homeless people are homeless because while everything else escalated in price, wages remained frozen & now people take to the streets because they have no choice. There's that saying "today me, tomorrow you"!
Absolutely correct Fred! That's why many people curse the government leaders. Start at the bottom & see the people truly suffering. Everything else will fall into place...
The only country that doesn’t seem open to this plan is the U S government which is sucking the life out of the country to benefit themselves. They have no considerations to help the people at all
Jeanie, I think one of the biggest differences right now is that a lot of countries are shifting toward resilience and long-term capacity building…
while the U.S. political system still often looks trapped in permanent internal warfare.
That doesn’t mean Americans themselves don’t want stability, affordability, infrastructure, or better opportunities... most clearly do.
But from the outside, the federal system there increasingly feels consumed by short-term political combat, financialization, and culture-war distraction while other countries are starting to focus again on...
energy,
manufacturing,
housing,
trade resilience,
critical minerals,
and industrial strategy.
That’s part of why speeches like Carney’s are getting attention internationally.
People are hungry for leaders talking about building things again...
ICE hires the dumbest and cruelest people they can find- and among the people who brought their picnics and their children to watch lynchings, people whose fathers were glad to immolate villages in Vietnam, people who have been teaching their children to hate from birth, there are plenty of descendents, sadly. They all seem to be overpaid at ICE right now.
Nancy, what’s making this situation so explosive is that a growing number of Americans
feel immigration enforcement has shifted from targeted law enforcement into
something far more aggressive, militarized, and publicly performative.
And the problem for ICE politically right now is that several high-profile incidents in Minnesota and elsewhere have raised serious questions about use of force,
accountability, and operational conduct. Investigations, lawsuits, protests, and
criminal charges against individual agents are now piling up.
At the same time, it’s important not to paint millions of Americans or all federal agents with one brush.
A lot of the anger people are expressing is really aimed at leadership, policy direction, and the broader political climate surrounding immigration enforcement...
not every individual working inside the system.
What’s undeniable, though, is that public trust erodes very quickly when enforcement operations start producing civilian deaths, conflicting official narratives,
and images that look more like occupation tactics than community policing.
ICE has been recruiting such highly desirable thugs such as the pardoned criminals from January 6, the Proud Boys, and other such nearly unemployables in the real world. They are committing crimes on a daily basis- busting down doors with no real warrants, bypassing any due process in the kidnapping process, and throwing all manner of people into privately run prisons.
Many other federal agencies, thanks to DOGE and to amazingly incompetent and corrupt leadership- see Kash Patel, Tom Homan, Markwayne Mullin- have purged or lost the more serious and experienced agents.
The focus on the crimes being committed by ICE, CBP, and other Trump-run federal agencies is necessary- because there is no accountabilty otherwise.
Penny, I suspect a lot of leaders are watching this shift closely right now...
especially countries dealing with the same mix of housing pressure, energy transition costs, sluggish productivity, and public frustration.
What stood out in Carney’s speech wasn’t ideology as much as tone...
less managerial politics,
more nation-building language.
Whether governments can actually deliver on that is the real test, of course.
But politically, people are clearly hungry for leaders talking about building capacity again instead of just managing decline one budget cycle at a time.
Thank you Fred, the trouble with the UK is Nigel Farage. Like the Trump, he is a narcissistic sociopath and liar. He has proven himself to be a racist And list, but that small portion of the British public that are also racist and nationalistic think he is talking for them. Just before the recent Council elections it was discovered he had been given a ‘gift’ of £5 million, he says it is to pay for his security’ ! The media are owned by people like Murdoch and other millionaires, so it is in their interest to get Reform into power.
Thank you Fred, the trouble with the UK is Nigel Farage. Like the Trump, he is a narcissistic sociopath and liar. He has proven himself to be a racist And list, but that small portion of the British public that are also racist and nationalistic think he is talking for them. Just before the recent Council elections it was discovered he had been given a ‘gift’ of £5 million, he says it is to pay for his security’ ! The media are owned by people like Murdoch and other millionaires, so it is in their interest to get Reform into power. It is going to be interesting to see what a mess these Reform Councillors make over the next two years. We have a good leader in Keir Starmer and he has done some good things, but the whole media machine is bringing him down and it looks like a leadership contest will happen. His problem is he looks like a little grey man( if you get my meaning) he has no personality, and it is that singular thing that is working against him.
I am *so* jealous of Canadians!
As usual, Geezer, another wonderful article! I hope the provinces pay attention to the feds housing plans as the provinces need to step up on their constitutional obligation for housing.
Off topic but it would be great to see an article on housing, energy, food comparisons for similar countries. Certainly, these issues don’t exist solely in Canada.
Scott, that’s actually a great point because these pressures aren’t unique to Canada.
Housing affordability, food costs, energy transition pressures, aging infrastructure...
most developed countries are wrestling with the same problems right now.
Australia, the UK, Germany, even parts of the U.S. are dealing with similar affordability and housing strains.
That doesn’t excuse Canadian mistakes, but it does change the conversation from...
“Why is Canada uniquely failing?”
to:
“What structural pressures are hitting most advanced economies at the same time?”
That’s partly why Carney’s speech stood out to me.
It wasn’t pretending the old system still works perfectly...
it was acknowledging that the world changed and Canada has to adapt to it.
Great reply, Fred. Thank you.
Justin was a twit but to be fair before he left Trudeau worked on deeper ASEAN ties. Carney was able to continue the work.
As for work, one of Canada's biggest problems is communication with its youth and parents. Guidance in schools has sucked from when I was in high school in the late 80s. I am a career Development Practitioner and guess what. Guidance still sucks.
Let's face it. We are snobs. Many don't want our kids to do the labour. We say we want women to do skilled trades and yet when i was training as a CDP, women told me how badly treated they wore on the job.
And we don't want to bring in people to do it either. We have a war on and the people of India 🇮🇳 the labour got the boot. Yeah, after Indian students got the boot from here. Ridiculous.
We need doctors, nurses and new techs. We need skilled labor. We can to rocket science. We just sent Canadians to the moon.
Feh
Kristine, honestly, this may be one of the most grounded comments in the thread.
Because underneath all the politics, a huge part of this comes down to culture and incentives.
For decades we pushed an almost universal message...
university = success
trades = fallback option
Meanwhile society still absolutely depends on electricians, welders, mechanics, nurses, builders, technicians, machinists, and infrastructure workers to function at all.
You’re also right that Canada has talked a big game about skilled trades diversity for years while many workplaces still haven’t caught up culturally.
And yes... the communication failure with young people is massive.
A lot of students still graduate with almost no realistic understanding of where actual labour shortages exist, what trades can earn, or how strategically important those careers are becoming.
That’s partly why the “build again” language matters.
You cannot build housing, energy systems, transit, manufacturing capacity, or infrastructure without skilled people.
At some point countries rediscover that real economies still run on people who know how to physically do things.
Hi Canadians! Would you mind very much if we Australians cloned your Prime Minister please? We need someone like your Mark Carney to help us rebuild our future too. Albo's ok, but he's not brave enough to make the big decisions for us.
Joan, judging by the comments lately, I think half of Europe wants to borrow him for a few months too. 😄
What I think people are responding to isn’t just Carney himself...
it’s the shift in tone.
Less culture-war theatre.
Less “everything’s fine.”
More...
“The world changed. We need to adapt fast and rebuild real capacity.”
That message is landing in a lot of countries right now because people can feel the old economic model straining almost everywhere.
"We stopped building."
I'd like to add that it stopped with Mulroney, then the upward slide of wealth was in high gear with Harper.
I'm encouraged by Carney's plan to rebuild, build out, and most importantly, build with everyday Canadians with the promise that we'll benefit structurally as well as financially.
We voted for the right person.
Stacy, I think that’s exactly what a lot of Canadians are responding to right now...
not perfection, but direction.
For years, the country felt like it was managing problems instead of solving them.
Housing shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks, energy paralysis, productivity decline… everybody could see the cracks, but very little felt ambitious anymore.
What stood out to me in Carney’s speech wasn’t just the “build” language.
It was the ownership language.
That’s new.
Canadians are used to hearing about projects benefiting corporations, pension funds, or foreign investors.
Hearing a Prime Minister openly talk about Canadians themselves sharing in the upside of nation-building projects hits differently.
And you’re right...
“We stopped building” was probably the most important sentence in the entire speech because it acknowledged reality without trying to spin it.
Hard to fix anything until somebody admits the foundation’s cracked.
Very well done Fred!!! Carney is noticing what I have been noticing for a few years now. Thank Ford, & I still like Ford, for certain areas of expertise. We are building 50 units of affordable housing for Sault Ste Marie! Eventually you see the work going up, near the waterfront, then the gut punch!!! This "affordable" housing for working people, units cost $2500.00 & upwards per unit!!! That is not "affordable" housing in a small city, that's a gift horse to people that can afford better, due to the positions they hold! This, while people are still working 2 or 3 parttime positions to survive! THESE are the people that need actual affordable housing! Many homeless people are homeless because while everything else escalated in price, wages remained frozen & now people take to the streets because they have no choice. There's that saying "today me, tomorrow you"!
Patsy, I think you just nailed the exact reason so many people have become cynical about the word “affordable.”
When ordinary working people hear “affordable housing,” they’re thinking...
“Can a grocery clerk, PSW, mechanic, server, trades apprentice, or senior actually live there without drowning?”
Not...
“Can a dual-income professional household shave a little off luxury pricing?”
That gap between political language and lived reality has been growing for years.
And you’re absolutely right about wages lagging behind survival costs.
A lot of homelessness now isn’t tied to addiction or mental illness alone...
it’s increasingly tied to simple math that no longer works.
Rent up.
Food up.
Utilities up.
Insurance up.
Wages… mostly stalled.
That’s why Carney’s “we stopped building” line mattered.
Because until governments admit the scale of the shortage honestly,
people stop trusting the promises attached to it.
Absolutely correct Fred! That's why many people curse the government leaders. Start at the bottom & see the people truly suffering. Everything else will fall into place...
The only country that doesn’t seem open to this plan is the U S government which is sucking the life out of the country to benefit themselves. They have no considerations to help the people at all
Jeanie, I think one of the biggest differences right now is that a lot of countries are shifting toward resilience and long-term capacity building…
while the U.S. political system still often looks trapped in permanent internal warfare.
That doesn’t mean Americans themselves don’t want stability, affordability, infrastructure, or better opportunities... most clearly do.
But from the outside, the federal system there increasingly feels consumed by short-term political combat, financialization, and culture-war distraction while other countries are starting to focus again on...
energy,
manufacturing,
housing,
trade resilience,
critical minerals,
and industrial strategy.
That’s part of why speeches like Carney’s are getting attention internationally.
People are hungry for leaders talking about building things again...
instead of just fighting non-stop online.
ICE hires the dumbest and cruelest people they can find- and among the people who brought their picnics and their children to watch lynchings, people whose fathers were glad to immolate villages in Vietnam, people who have been teaching their children to hate from birth, there are plenty of descendents, sadly. They all seem to be overpaid at ICE right now.
Nancy, what’s making this situation so explosive is that a growing number of Americans
feel immigration enforcement has shifted from targeted law enforcement into
something far more aggressive, militarized, and publicly performative.
And the problem for ICE politically right now is that several high-profile incidents in Minnesota and elsewhere have raised serious questions about use of force,
accountability, and operational conduct. Investigations, lawsuits, protests, and
criminal charges against individual agents are now piling up.
At the same time, it’s important not to paint millions of Americans or all federal agents with one brush.
A lot of the anger people are expressing is really aimed at leadership, policy direction, and the broader political climate surrounding immigration enforcement...
not every individual working inside the system.
What’s undeniable, though, is that public trust erodes very quickly when enforcement operations start producing civilian deaths, conflicting official narratives,
and images that look more like occupation tactics than community policing.
ICE has been recruiting such highly desirable thugs such as the pardoned criminals from January 6, the Proud Boys, and other such nearly unemployables in the real world. They are committing crimes on a daily basis- busting down doors with no real warrants, bypassing any due process in the kidnapping process, and throwing all manner of people into privately run prisons.
Many other federal agencies, thanks to DOGE and to amazingly incompetent and corrupt leadership- see Kash Patel, Tom Homan, Markwayne Mullin- have purged or lost the more serious and experienced agents.
The focus on the crimes being committed by ICE, CBP, and other Trump-run federal agencies is necessary- because there is no accountabilty otherwise.
Perhaps Prime Minister Carney should have a chat with Keir Starmer.
Penny, I suspect a lot of leaders are watching this shift closely right now...
especially countries dealing with the same mix of housing pressure, energy transition costs, sluggish productivity, and public frustration.
What stood out in Carney’s speech wasn’t ideology as much as tone...
less managerial politics,
more nation-building language.
Whether governments can actually deliver on that is the real test, of course.
But politically, people are clearly hungry for leaders talking about building capacity again instead of just managing decline one budget cycle at a time.
Thank you Fred, the trouble with the UK is Nigel Farage. Like the Trump, he is a narcissistic sociopath and liar. He has proven himself to be a racist And list, but that small portion of the British public that are also racist and nationalistic think he is talking for them. Just before the recent Council elections it was discovered he had been given a ‘gift’ of £5 million, he says it is to pay for his security’ ! The media are owned by people like Murdoch and other millionaires, so it is in their interest to get Reform into power.
Thank you Fred, the trouble with the UK is Nigel Farage. Like the Trump, he is a narcissistic sociopath and liar. He has proven himself to be a racist And list, but that small portion of the British public that are also racist and nationalistic think he is talking for them. Just before the recent Council elections it was discovered he had been given a ‘gift’ of £5 million, he says it is to pay for his security’ ! The media are owned by people like Murdoch and other millionaires, so it is in their interest to get Reform into power. It is going to be interesting to see what a mess these Reform Councillors make over the next two years. We have a good leader in Keir Starmer and he has done some good things, but the whole media machine is bringing him down and it looks like a leadership contest will happen. His problem is he looks like a little grey man( if you get my meaning) he has no personality, and it is that singular thing that is working against him.
Well said Fred.
Excellent
Top man. Regards