Michael Harris Live
I was on Michael Harris Live on 580 CFRA in Ottawa today to discuss The Canadian Century.
The Canadian Century in InsiderOnline
InsiderOnline has a post about The Canadian Century that once again shows that the book’s analysis is attracting wide assent among those knowledgeable about conditions in both Canada and the US:
Thanks in part to the U.S. government’s recent spending binges, a group of Canadian authors say that Canada now has the better business environment. “If the United States continues on its current course,” write Brian Lee Crowley, Jason Clemens, and Niels Veldhuis, “Canada will find itself without peer as a magnet for investment, immigrants, innovation, and growth.” They make this prediction in their new book, The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow.
But the issue isn’t just fiscal overstretch by the United States. They point to what they call Canada’s “redemptive decade” from 1988 to 1997, when politicians of all political stripes supported a program of free trade, trimming the extensive Canadian welfare state, and reducing both taxes and the government’s debt burden. Despite some backsliding, those reforms will be the basis of Canada’s prosperity, say the authors.
They’re certainly right about the recent role reversal. In the latest issue of The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, Canada ranks as the seventh freest economy in the world, one spot ahead of the United States. That’s the first time Canada has been ahead of the United States in the rankings, and most of that switch is attributable to a declining U.S. score.
The Canadian Century in Maclean’s
Brian Bethune reviews The Canadian Century in Maclean’s (third item).
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as it turns out, was not so much wrong as a shade off in his timing. It’s not the 20th century that would belong to Canada—it’s the 21st, according to Crowley, managing director for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy, and his co-authors in a cheerful (if bracing) survey of our future prospects. Actually, Laurier may not have been even that much wrong: Canadians let the Liberal prime minister down when the benighted electorate rejected free trade in 1911, putting a 78-year crimp in our national potential. But we have grown to love free trade, or at least live with it, and today, write the authors in a book subtitled Moving Out of America’s Shadow, the stars are aligned for Canadian prospects, especially in comparison with our neighbours to the south.
It’s hard to argue with their convincing case. The U.S., as they point out, can’t seem to get its act together in any number of vital areas, from the national debt to tax policy. In contrast, after a hardscrabble decade of reform in the late 1980s and ’90s, Canada has much of its needed institutional infrastructure in place. Our tax structure, despite recent Harper government micromanaging of the sort that sends Crowley et al. around the bend (a tax credit for home reno here, a tax break for transit passes there), is a model of simplicity compared with America’s, which the authors declare to be “nearly impossible for average citizens to navigate” and consequently a burden on the economy. Just about everything else plays out in the same way: the U.S. in the mire for the foreseeable future, Canada looking good. But a clarion call to action, not bragging, is the authors’ aim. Like Canada in the ’90s, America will eventually turn around. If we want to seize our opportunity for a fair share of North American growth, the authors warn, we still have work to do in health care (the costly elephant in the room), and, above all, in ensuring the stimulus deficit doesn’t become permanent.
The Canadian Century on the Michael Coren show
On May 27, I was on the Michael Coren show to discuss The Canadian Century. Also with me were three great panellists: John Nunziata, Adam Giambrone and Akaash Maharaj all under the firm but creative hand of Michael Coren in the chair. While we spent the first segment in a stimulating discussion of Canadian Century, we also tackled lots of great issues later in the show: the costs of the G20 summit, Canada’s relationship with Israel and lots more. Enjoy!
Click here to watch the episode.
The Canadian Century on BNN
Yesterday I was on BNN’s Squeezeplay to discuss The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow. You can watch the interview here.
Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters gets briefing about The Canadian Century
Within days of the release of MLI’s first book, Canadian Century, I was in the Langevin Block office of Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, to present him with a signed copy. Wayne and I had a detailed discussion about the options for both elected and unelected federal government officials in moving ahead with the reforms outlined in Canadian Century. He was particularly pleased that the book credited the entire Canadian political class with the fiscal and other reforms that have positioned Canada so strongly from an economic point of view. I think a few deputy ministers may get copies of the book as Canada Day presents!
Here are a few pictures from our meeting:
The Canadian Century in The Weekly Standard
Fred Barnes writes about The Canadian Century, and the lessons it contains for America, in the Weekly Standard.
Canada was called an “honorary member of the Third World” by the Wall Street Journal in 1995, and for good reason. Out-of-control spending, soaring debt, and the government’s bite of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growing at a furious pace—those trends prompted the Journal’s harsh putdown. Sound familiar? Those are exactly the trends that endanger America’s economy and standard of living today.
Only with Canada there’s a difference. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Canadians came to grips with their fiscal crisis. They cut spending at both the national and provincial (state) level, reduced the size and payroll of government, slashed debt, and produced what Paul Martin, then finance minister and later prime minister, called smaller, smarter government.
Canada is now in a far better economic situation than the United States. Its unemployment rate is lower, its budget deficit breathtakingly smaller (after nearly a decade of balanced budgets), its debt burden far lighter, its banks more stable. The Canadian dollar, once worth as little as .62 cents, is currently nearly at parity with the American dollar.
While not quite gloating, Canadians are eager to tout their comparative advantage. The authors of the new book The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow wrote in the National Post last week: “If the United States continues on its current course, Canada will find itself without peer as a magnet for investment, immigrants, innovation, and growth.” Had he been invited to President Obama’s “jobs summit” last December, David Frum, a Canadian and prominent political commentator who lives in Washington, said he “would have advised: Learn from Canada.”
The Canadian Century in the National Post – Part Two
The National Post is running a second excerpt from The Canadian Century in today’s edition. Read it here.
The Canadian Century in The Mark
Allan Gotlieb, former Canadian ambassador to the United States, writes about The Canadian Century in The Mark:
In writing The Canadian Century, Brian Crowley, Jason Clemens, and Niels Veldhuis have done a great service for Canada.
It isn’t just that they have reminded Canadians of the remarkable vision and record of one of our greatest prime ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and shown how his plan for Canada is as relevant and vital to us today as it was in his day. It isn’t just that they tell more comprehensively and more clearly than anyone before them the story of a reforming generation of Canadian politicians. Nor is it just that they paint as detailed and sobering a picture as anyone on either side of the border ever has of the tax, debt, and spending trap which is daily ensnaring our American friends and allies.
What they have done is to go beyond each of these individual stories, weaving them together into a single comprehensive look at the opportunities that await Canada in the twenty-first century. In so doing they reveal something of the genius of Canada. We are neither a boastful nor a prideful people, but we think that we ought to do the right thing, even if it takes us a little while to figure out what that might be. And when we get the bit between our teeth, we see things through.
The Canadian Century in the National Post
The National Post is running an excerpt from The Canadian Century in today’s edition. Read it here.
