In the span of a week, Canadians were witness to economic headlines which appear to confirm that the country’s overall performance wasn’t as advertised near the end of October when, as the Federal election neared its end, there was little to suggest the economy wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Whether coincidence or the deliberate withholding of negative news in the midst of an election, what’s clear is that Canada’s economy is now underperforming and it has serious consequences for all Canadians.

Last week’s jaw-dropping revelation by Statistics Canada that the country had shed 71,200 full-time net jobs in the energy and manufacturing sector in just one month, in contrast to the U.S. gaining 260,000 new jobs in the same period, was just a sample of the more sobering news that followed. Canadian manufacturing contracted .7% in the last quarter, credit insolvencies and bankruptcies rose 19% year over year to their highest levels in a decade and growing credit card debt that reached $100 billion for the first time. To make matters worse, the federal government missed its projected debt target of 19.7 billion for the year and instead posted an additional $7 billion in borrowing this year and on track to an adding $9 billion more than estimated, next year. Not surprisingly, economists are now worried that the country is woefully unprepared to weather any future serious market downturn. It wasn’t therefore much of surprise, that in his silly attempt to make a silk purse out of sow’s ear, Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau became something of a laughing stock when he suggested, with a straight face no less, that Canada’s economy was still strong. With Canada now ranking 144th in world GDP growth at a projected anemic rate of 1.8%, the yearly economic prognosis has many suggesting Canada may be flirting with a made at home recession. Added to all this, inflation is once again rearing its ugly head with the core rate rising 2.2% year-over-year led by fuel and food.

While waning economic indicators can be linked to a number of factors, Canada’s underwhelming numbers are nevertheless reaching disconcerting levels, despite the Minister Morneau’s faux optimism and ignorance. Taken as a whole, there’s little doubt Ottawa’s mismanagement and environmental virtue signalling is beginning to backfire and only the most ardent of partisans are willing to look away.

The blame for this clear downturn rests with the Trudeau government’s utopian embrace of the green agenda, which on the one hand has contributed to the throttling of infrastructure that would deliver Canada’s energy resources to ready markets globally, reckless and unnecessary deficit spending during a period of stronger economic growth and carbon tax policies that have artificially increased the cost of living for most while ushering in a new era of carbon leakage, in which higher costs of doing business have many firms considering layoffs, a move to other countries like the U.S., or closing operations all together.

In falling for the globalist strategy of making carbon reduction, the Trudeau government’s singular quest by which all other matters of national importance stand or fall, Trudeau’s woke obsession with carbon emission reduction appears on course to reduce the size and vitality of the Canadian economy as a whole, all the while eroding Canada’s enviable standard of living and once confident outlook.