Canada’s economy got to such an alarming place that even the Liberal government, now under Mark Carney, has realized they need to get some investment going after 10 years of chasing it away, giving us the lost decade. That is, unless you work in the ever-growing public sector.
Canada has lost over $250B in projects that have been red-taped into the ground or scared out of the country. Billions more in opportunities and sector developing capital don’t even look into Canada anymore, while record investment capital is flowing out of Canada.
As a solution to get something going, Carney is set to print billions of dollars in more deficit spending, which he calls an investment, to help invigorate some life into our industrial sectors. The problem is that this is the most inefficient and expensive way of doing it.
Canada’s general government debt is at a record high $3.85T as of Q2 2025, marking a new record high of 129.42% of GDP. Net central government debt has reached $1.4T, also a record. The interest on just the federal debt is now over double what it was just 10 years ago. We are paying more in interest than we collect from GST and more than we pay out in health transfers. Adding any more debt to this is just reckless and should be the last option.
There is no shortage of money out there looking to invest, including Canadian’s money. What Canada needs to do is become investable. The focus should be to attract organic capital, stop losing it, and cut red tape.
Just from January to July 2025, over $80B left Canada for international securities. We are at a record high for how much Canadian money is choosing to invest outside of Canada. This should be the alarming part to politicians. The total sum is just a little smaller than our GDP.
Overwhelmingly, Canadians are choosing to invest in the US. There are more opportunities as far as choices, and less red tape. A business friendly environment will always attract more capital as it cuts ROI time and risk.
Turning this capital around should be the number one priority. If we can become attractive to capital and offer investors options on where to invest, we can have a substantial inflow of capital.
Bringing back just 10% of our own money back and stopping the bleed of half of the money that leaves Canada will generate a 10% to GDP equivalent boost to Canada’s economy without any new debt printed. This is huge.
We need to get out of the way of CapEx investment, open markets for industries and competition, and generate new industries to attract the largest amount of capital possible. None of this can be replaced with subsidies to create long term growth with printing more debt. Our economy needs to thrive - and it can be, because we have a fruitful ecosystem that people want to be a part of. More debt and taxes doesn’t create that.