Focusing on the things that really matter

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/03/2025 (228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Will next month’s federal election be a Seinfeld one — about nothing — or a serious one about the future path of the country?

We’ve had Seinfeld elections before. Try recalling what the 2021 election was about. Or the one before that.

We’ve had serious elections too, like the 1988 free trade election.

Five years after that one though, serious was out. That’s when Prime Minister Kim Campbell said of her 1993 election campaign, “This is not the time … to get involved in a debate on very, very serious issues.”

She was wrong to believe and say that. But she wasn’t wrong to believe what she said about elections moments before she uttered that fatal line: “I think that is the worst possible time to have a dialogue.” It is, she was just wrong to say it.

Construing election campaigns as a “dialogue” is a quaint, outdated, and, frankly, losing notion for parties. Today’s contests are a two-front struggle to mobilize committed, engaged partisans while reaching uncommitted, unengaged voters. The pressure for simplistic attack messaging, one-off ideas, and, yes, slogans that appeal to a narrow voting coalition overwhelms any prospect for campaigns and platforms that propose serious policy alternatives for the country.

This election cries out to be different. Canada is at a serious inflection point brought about by U.S. President Donald Trump. His looming economic warfare and sovereignty threats against our country demand a different, bolder response by our politicians.

Yet, if past patterns persist, we will get a performative campaign about who has the biggest Canadian flag at their rallies and duelling jibes about which leader Trump likes best, or least.

During a Liberal leadership debate, Mark Carney referred to Canada’s declining economic productivity and the cost of living. Nanoseconds later, the Conservative Party attacked him for using the word productivity and somehow blaming Canadians for having to work harder.

Huh? Don’t talk about “productivity”?

According to the Bank of Canada, declining productivity is at the heart of our current and future economic stagnation. “Strong productivity … leads to faster growth, more jobs, and higher wages.” Yet, “relative to the United States, among G7 countries we are now second only to Italy when it comes to productivity decline.”

Compared to the United States, we are now 30 per cent less productive. RBC Economics says this is equivalent to $20,000 per year, per person, “putting Canadians’ wages roughly eight per cent below their U.S. counterparts.”

That’s real money. No surprise then that TD Economics says, “Canadian’s standard of living, as measured by real GDP per person, was lower in 2023 than in 2014.”

Over the past 10 years, Canada was second-last across 42 countries and regions in real gross domestic product growth on a per-person basis with only 1.4 per cent growth, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Don’t worry though, we beat Luxembourg.

Manitoba is not immune. According to Statistics Canada, Manitoba had the fourth-worst labour productivity in Canada in 2023, well below the national average and only ahead of the Maritime provinces.

Today in Canada, manufacturing is half as important to the economy as it was 25 years ago. Canadian businesses invest about half as much now per worker as companies do in America. When it comes to innovation, Canada ranks 15th out of 20 countries according to the Conference Board of Canada. Competition intensity across firms has been declining for two decades now, according to the Competition Bureau.

Making this worse is the risk-averse culture in business, government, politics, and society. It prevents us from confronting the big, systemic barriers to our own economic well-being. We’ve been content to coast. But there’s a cost to coasting. And Canada is about to pay it.

Canada’s economy has been powered by what economists call “comparative advantage” the ability to provide a resource, good, or service more cheaply. That has meant exploiting and exporting our natural resources, principally to the U.S.

But that market is now at risk. And so is the economic model we’ve dined out on all these years.

Yet, all we hear is doubling down on the same thing. Faster and more resource development.

Natural resources matter, representing 15 per cent of our economy and eight per cent of all jobs. That’s not nothing, but it isn’t everything. Building more pipelines alone will not fix the fundamentals ailing our declining economy in the face of Trump’s existential threat to our way of life.

The real ballgame for Canada is “competitive advantage,” producing and selling goods and services at less cost with more value. That means dealing with productivity.

Voters need to demand to see the rest of the plan from our leaders to secure our economy and raise our standard of living against a protectionist and isolationist America First worldview.

So, will this be a “Seinfeld election” — about nothing — or a serious election about serious issues at a serious time?

For the country’s sake, it better be the latter.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.