Canada is currently plagued by the same set of challenges as many other countries: The end of a post-war baby boom that results in a large number of non-working seniors for the health care system to look after, the rapidly growing costs of climate change, the aftermath of supporting the vulnerable during the COVID pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East that upset global supply chains for energy and delay a rational response to climate change, scams and political interference from the other side of the world, and mass migration from all the worst-affected areas.
Trickle-down economics is the theory that tax breaks and benefits for corporations and the wealthy will trickle down and eventually benefit everyone. It sounds good, but it has never worked anywhere. If it works, why aren’t the top 1% to 5% keeping up with providing good jobs for others?
A little fact-checking clearly shows that the Scandinavian countries currently ranked highest in economic, social, and environmental comparisons are those that practice trickle-up economics. If the large masses of ordinary people are doing well, the rich will do even better.
The classic experiment in trickle-down economics took place in the United States where, in the early 1980s, a group of billionaires called Citizens United (an oxymoron if there ever was one) was concerned about protecting their mostly inherited fortunes and lobbied the Reagan administration to eliminate election campaign contribution laws. The result is that today, it costs an average of $26 million to get elected as a congressman or senator (vs $160,000 in Canada). So, wealthy people and companies can buy their congressmen and senators, and they do. The result is a deeply divided country with an unhealthy distribution of wealth and opportunity.
More recently, the British Conservatives went down in flames after 14 years of their version of trickle-down economics nearly bankrupted their previously excellent healthcare system.
The Internet and AI are making our world smaller every day. We are now affected daily by increasingly sophisticated scams, misinformation, and political interference from the other side of the world.
There is a big difference between center-right conservatives like Brian Mulroney and Bill Davis and Conservatives that think a far-right stance will get them that $203,000 MP salary and pension. Pierre Poilievre’s far-right Conservatives are peddling their version of trickle-down economics that, like Citizens United in the US, is very dependent on support from the fading and desperate fossil fuel industries. Instead of clinging to the past, Conservatives and the fossil fuel industries should be moving ASAP into the new forms of zero-emission energy that offer a much better future for us all.
Shame on us if we buy into Poilievre’s very simplistic but very loud “axe the tax” pitch. Giv
ven today’s formidable list of challenges, do we really have five years to waste on another experiment that has already failed in similar countries?

Hugh Holland is a retired engineering and manufacturing executive now living in Huntsville, Ontario.
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Well said!!