Speaking at a news conference on climate change, Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland said that companies are falling over themselves to invest in Canada so they can have the opportunity to pay the carbon tax.
“I think it’s really important to emphasize that in 2024, it is just not possible to have an effective economic plan that does not also include an effective climate plan,” Freeland said. “The investments that Canada is attracting today are coming to Canada in large part because foreign investors recognize that we have a price on pollution, and we have a strong climate plan.”
“And that means they want to be here and make stuff here in Canada and create good jobs here in Canada because the world global markets increasingly are not tolerant of things that are produced in an economy that is not underpinned by strong climate action.”
Of course, this isn’t true. Increasingly, Canada is hemorrhaging business due to over-taxation and general red tape preventing entrepreneurs from getting started, and foreign direct investment is totally flat.
Canada is about to see a huge loss in business
According to a 2023 report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, Canada could lose over $2 trillion in assets as small business owners look to close down shop for good with no succession plan or leave for greener pastures elsewhere. In fact, 76% have indicated they plan to do so over the next decade if the economy doesn’t improve, with 20% saying they’re burned out and 21% saying they’re tired of all the hoops they have to jump through to continue being owners.
This is especially problematic given the fact that Canada has 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than it did 20 years ago (thank inflation and red tape), and a large portion of once-active businesses declared bankruptcy due to the Trudeau government’s COVID lockdowns.
Unfortunately, this trend has continued, with business insolvencies increasing by 129.3% between January 2023 and January 2024.
As for foreign investment, foreign direct investment in the country has, on average, seen no noticeable increase year-over-year since 2008, when investors began stashing their money away in Canadian real estate to avoid the more drastic downturns in the American market in the wake of the 2008 bubble and subsequent crash.
And despite claims by Freeland, the carbon tax, which the vast majority of Canadians are against, isn’t helping anything, either. It’s, unsurprisingly, having the opposite effect—stifling Canadian businesses, pumping up costs, and serving as a warning sign to possible investors that the Canadian government will tax you for practically everything.
CEOs beg Trudeau to reverse capital gains tax hike
And this message has only been amplified by the Trudeau government’s most recent anti-business policy of increasing the capital gains tax inclusion rate to 66% (one of the highest in the world), ensuring that, even if you do somehow succeed, the government will be sure to take the lion’s share of the profits.
In response, 100s of CEOs who employ thousands if not millions of Canadians have begged the government to reverse course, to which Trudeau has brushed them off. And in a telling display of contempt, the Liberal Minister of Small Businesses stated that should business owners leave (specifically doctors running private practices), the Trudeau government will just work harder to replace Canadian professionals with foreigners.
But with policies like these and such a blatant anti-business, anti-prosperity stance, who would want to set up shop in Canada, and who would want to invest?
