My Vote FOR & AGAINST

Post 85 | Renewal or Same?

We often split our vote between something we’re FOR and something we’re AGAINST.

Proportions differ. Reasons differ.

Sometimes we’re conflicted and wrestle between emotions and logic.

If this election plays out on current trajectory we are headed for emotion stepping firmly on the throat of logic - with a heavy dose of amnesia and a sprinkling of fairy dust on top.

Perhaps you’ve had a spiffy last decade, can’t see what all the fuss is about now that Trudeau is gone, while overcome by Trumpian fear, but generally happy with our country’s direction and looking for more of the same.

Or maybe like millions of Canadians you struggle to thrive or just survive. Or, like me you despair at our squandered potential, saddened by our weakened state, while confident we can again be better.

Prior articles have explored my support of the Conservatives in this election based on their having closest alignment to my own worldview and policy preferences.

Today provides a case for my vote AGAINST the Liberal regime. It begins by recounting a decade’s track record of failure.

And nope, it’s not different now because Mark Carney is on the scene.

At all.

But I’ll get to that.

---

Liberal Government Record 2015-2025

1. LOST ECONOMIC DECADE

• Ten years of budget deficits, plus every budget target missed

• Debt doubled from $612 billion to $1,230,000,000,000 (trillion)

• $54,000,000,000 (billion) of annual debt interest. That is $1928 per tax filer in Canada. And 125% of military spending

• Ten years of slowing GDP growth

• Labour productivity growth rate decline, near record low of 0.8% and worst in G7 countries

• Historic cost of living, inflation and housing

  

2. ENERGY & MINING DOMINANCE SQUANDERED

• Bill C-69 Impact Assessment Act throttled new oil, gas and mining projects

• 35% emissions cap on our largest revenue producer

• Rejected international demand for our LNG – which would have diversified us from the United States, increased revenues and been a blow to Russian aggression

• Ignored opportunity to replace the developing world’s coal fired energy with our clean LNG and responsibly generated oil

• Mining projects in critical minerals and rare earths have been at a near standstill, taking average 6-18 years to begin

3. TRADE OPPORTUNITIES WASTED

• Inherited two international agreements to diversify trade beyond the United States - CETA (Europe) and CPTPP (Asia Pacific) - yet barely leveraged their potential

• Willfully blew up trading and diplomatic relations with India, the world’s fifth largest economy

  

4. UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION

• 15% population increase driven by 5 million immigrants

• 1 million immigrants “lost” and undercounted in the system

• No plan to ensure services and housing could meet the influx. Nor coordination with industry to ensure job accreditation and employment

• Yet we have 13,000 immigrant doctors and 43,000 immigrant nurses unable to practice in Canada, while suffering a shortage of 23,000 doctors and need 100,000 nurses by 2031

5. MILITARY AND FOREIGN POLICY DISARRAY

• If anyone can explain the past ten years of Canada’s foreign policy, please do so

• Yet our government gave $76,000,000,000 (billion) in foreign aid over ten years

• Cancelled the F-35 jet purchases in 2015 only to buy the same in 2023 at nearly double the price and $70,000,000,000 (billion) lifecycle cost

• Ignored the Nanisivik Naval refueling and docking station project on Baffin Island begun during Harper era as an underpinning of our northern border security

• Disregarded border security and domestic safety. By every measure Canada is more at risk than ever

6. SOVEREIGNTY THREATENED

• Delayed four years after allies before banning China’s state-controlled Huawei from our 5G networks

• The Hogue Inquiry and NSICOP uncovered gross incompetence and poor governance in handling China’s blatant interference in our elections and domestic affairs

• Chinese interference continues per SITE Task Force, including in the current election

7. NET ZERO HYPER FOCUS & FAILURE

• Despite punishing carbon taxes Canada’s emissions increased and missed every target, while GDP and productivity tanked as we pursued net zero projects

• Hyper focus on carbon has detracted from a holistic biodiversity plan involving clean water, air and soil

• 2035 EV mandate continues despite demand cratering, electricity infrastructure fragile, charging infrastructure lagging, mineral production for batteries not locked, car manufacturers struggling, and massively subsidized foreign EV battery plants delaying or pulling out of Canada

8. HISTORY DENIGRATION

• Canada was charged as culturally genocidal at the United Nations, encouraged by our federal government

• Churches were burned and statues toppled including of our founding Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald and Queen Elizabeth. History was revised including names erased from history. All while our government fanned the flames

• Flags flown at half mast for 6 months in deference to still unproven claims of mass graves and evil doing

• National pride and unity is at an all time low in our 158 year history - by every poll and measure

9. CRIME SPIKED WHILE CIVIL FREEDOMS ABUSED

• Crime rates at historic highs due to Bill C-75 (Catch & Release) and drug crisis

• Drug deaths of nearly 50,000 since 2016 - at a rate of 22 per day

• Forced Covid lockdowns and vaccines including on children

• Emergency Measures Act implemented, civil liberties suspended, bank accounts frozen, criminal prosecutions ongoing - for localized policing matters

• Shut down our democracy through Prorogue to serve partisan purposes

10. DEI VERSUS MERITOCRACY

• Every level of federal government hiring and management has been impregnated with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies

• Policies and tone have destroyed meritocracy, stoked identity politics and created gender division

• Businesses, academia, professional associations and citizens have been pressured into submission for fear of cancellation and public shaming

---

Still Feeling Good About Things?

Chew on that all for a bit.

Then realize Canadians are tracking to re-elect this very same party who have demonstrably failed in every category of basic governance.

Fear not, though, because we’re told the incompetence, bad judgement, scandals, mismanagement, rabid ideology and rot have changed overnight, simply because of a new guy at the top. A guy about whom we know little despite whatever sainthood imprinted upon him by a fawning media and hopeful souls.

Mark Carney may be the most unvetted candidate for Prime Minister in Canada’s history.

But driven by an all-consuming fear of Donald Trump, voters are set to return us to the clutches of a serially incompetent and authoritative government. Meanwhile,

Core policies and ideology remain unchanged

Policies on which they claim to have shifted defy belief as they simply morphed overnight, into something still unclear

Same MPs remain who so badly bungled their departments, while being rotated between portfolios for maximum damage - like Guilbeault (2 Ministries), Freeland (5), Joly (5), Fraser (4), Holland (5), Miller (3), etc.

Same powerful and corrupt Liberal party machine remains

Same powerful PMO remains in place

The past ten years was a failing of the Liberal Party itself. Of the elected MPs. Of the Ministers. Of the Prime Minister. And of the unelected PMO.

This was not just a failing of Justin Trudeau.

Responsibility and complicity runs deep.

This is not something that fundamentally changes in two months because of a new guy in charge.

Yet millions are prepared to sweep it all under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen, while Carney sloughs it off.

Hey, it isn’t my fault. Though the same crew will still be running the country.

The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over, while expecting different results

Elitism Marries Idealism

So who is this new guy on which the fortunes of a party are pinned - and perhaps our country?

Since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, free market economics gifted us the modern world as it encouraged limited government intervention, the invisible hand of the market and competition as a driver of efficiency and innovation.

But Mark Carney scoffs at the free market that has served us for 250 years and declares Pierre Poilievre naive for wanting to free up that very market by reducing government’s stranglehold. Rather, Mark openly proposes that he and a few big-brained men of the world are best suited to guide the markets, social structures and environment because they know best. This is undeniable in his demonstrated history with the Bank of England, WEF, UN and Brookfield, and he even proudly declares his elitism.

“People will charge me with being elitist or a globalist, to use that term, which is, well, that’s exactly, it happens to be exactly what we need”

~ Mark Carney, February 2025 ~

Carney continues declaring that net zero has primacy on Canada’s list of concerns despite its many failures and conflated hyperbole, despite Canada’s failures in pursuit of it and despite his own deep involvement in its failure (the failed UN GFANZ being case in point).

He wants Canada to spend $2,000,000,000,000 (trillion) on net zero by 2050.

He refuses to commit to building oil & gas pipelines in Canada and speaks vaguely of energy and energy infrastructure.

”We must choose a few projects, a few big projects. Not necessarily pipelines, but maybe pipelines, we’ll see.”

~ Mark Carney, April 13, 2025 ~

He openly declares his preference for hydrogen, wind, solar and carbon capture projects - all either failed, unproven or unscalable - while we strand oceans of energy and mountains of minerals beneath our feet. Canada’s prosperity and future, untapped.

To believe Carney and Liberals like Guilbeault have found Jesus and will now avidly develop our fossil fuels is delusion.

What we see from Mr. Carney is idealism, hubris, elitism and arrogance. But re-converted voters don’t seem to care - while tsk-tsking about Poilievre’s sharp tone and likability quotient.

[Sigh]

---

A fourth Liberal term will bring more top down autocracy with a smarter father-knows-best leader having little knowledge of the real Canada that is struggling, coping and striving in a very different world than Mark occupies. He brims with ivory tower arrogance, accustomed to pulling big socio-economic levers while brutally unaware of real life. And he does not appreciate his brilliance being questioned.

Millions of Canadians have suffered under the last ten years of Liberal rule and are desperate for a chance to thrive, led by a government focused on returning to basics and governing sensibly and responsibly. These are the people Liberals regularly intone as average Canadians or hard working Canadians. But they have badly failed this huge swath of citizens spanning age, race, gender and socio-economic status.

What the Liberals conveniently have on their side, however, is fear of Donald Trump. Full stop. They really must send him a bouquet of flowers.

Millions are lining up with their fear vote in hand convinced Canada’s future is all about Donald Trump - as blinded as they were during the Covid election (remember how the whole world was all about Covid and would be forever more?) More gullibly, they think the very Liberal party who put us in such a weakened state as to be susceptible to Trump’s trolling are somehow now best placed to combat him. The irony is thick.

If you continue doing what you’ve always done, you’ll continue getting what you’ve always got.

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have spent two years meeting hundreds of thousands of Canadians in their communities and workplaces. They have listened to their stories, understand their pain, recognize their challenges, know their desires, are speaking for them and proposing a return to responsible governing.

The Conservatives have been pilloried for awakening us to the poor state of our country - even as they have laid out a vision, plan and policies for its return to fundamental governance that served us well for much of our history.

It is about doing the basic and consistent work to maximize the potential of our country, using the wonders bequeathed to us.

This election is about a return to fundamental good governance | versus big government control

It is about enabling people to thrive | not making them perpetual dependents

It is about being sensible and pragmatic | not idealistic and virtuous

It is about growing and building | not constraining and banning

It is about Canada as a priority | not high minded ideas or self-interest

---

I know what I’m voting FOR.

I also know what I am voting AGAINST.

Do you?

Stay tuned and stay pragmatic.