Don’t believe the spin, greatness can’t be broken

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/12/2022 (753 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Earlier this week, I wrote a column that discussed the five-minute video recently released by Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre. The video begins with him asking this question: “Do you ever feel like everything’s broken in Canada?,” but is devoted mostly to his perception of the addictions crisis that many Canadian cities are experiencing.

His addictions discussion has been widely condemned in the media as dangerous, deceptive and exploitive, but none of the analysis thus far has focused on the words Poilievre ends the video with. He says this: “It feels like everything’s broken in Canada. The good news is we’re going to fix it.”

Is he right? Is everything broken in Canada?

The facts tell a completely different story. For example, Canada ranked first in the world last year for highest quality of life, and the IMF says we have one of the world’s highest standards of living. Three Canadian cities — Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto — rank among the top 10 “most liveable” cities in the world. Out of 146 countries surveyed, Canada is the 15th-happiest.

Among G20 nations, we rank first for peace and second for democracy. We also rank sixth in the world for well-being and third for environmental quality.

Despite our small population, we have the sixth-highest number of universities ranked in the top 500 in the world, just behind China but ahead of Japan and South Korea. Canada has the most-educated talent pool in the OECD, with 60 per cent of Canadians between 25 and 64 having received post-secondary education. One in five Canadians speaks more than one language.

U.S. News and World Report ranks Canada third among all countries for racial equity, while the United Kingdom ranks 13th and the US ranks 54th. We rank fourth for our “freedom level” and 13th in “fundamental rights” (the U.S. ranks 37th). Our criminal justice system is ranked 12th in the world, with America far behind in 30th place.

Among the top 20 “strongest national brands,” BrandFinance ranks us at the top of the list, saying that “Canada boasts one of the highest brand perceptions scores, with excellent marks across both international and domestic audiences. With a stable economy and one of the highest standards of living in the world, Canada has a strong advantage in brand investment, and its brand performance has remained relatively high thanks to flexible COVID-19 policies.”

With so much focus on the economy and inflation, the most recent data shows Canada has the third-lowest inflation rate among G7 nations. Canada also ranks third among G7 countries with respect to the ease to start a business and the likelihood to attract the most investment in the next three years. Indeed, the Economist Intelligence Unit says Canada will be the best country in the G20 for doing business over the next five years.

Canada’s tax treatment for new business investment is the lowest in the G7, and its combined federal-provincial statutory corporate income tax rate is also one of the lowest in the G7. We rank fourth among G20 countries in terms of the least complex jurisdiction for conducting business, and first among G7 countries for our supportive business environment. We are the best in the G7 for “ease of paying taxes and low total tax burden for small- to medium-sized companies.”

All of that information is easily available on the internet via credible sources. I could add another 400 words of categories where Canada is at or near the top of the list, but you get the point: Canada is indisputably not broken.

Yes, we have issues that require more work, and we are struggling to respond to the many challenges caused by the COVID pandemic, climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But so is every other nation — and we have the highest quality of life and best image in the world.

To paraphrase former U.S. president Bill Clinton, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Canada that can’t be cured with what is right with Canada.

Given the facts set out above, why would Poilievre say Canada is broken if it isn’t? Why would he say things that are demonstrably untrue and contrary to the national interest?

It’s all about politics and ambition. He knows he will never be prime minister unless he can convince the millions of Canadians that it’s time for a change, and that happy people don’t want change.

That’s why Poilievre is peddling his bag of division, despair and disillusionment. That’s why he wants you to believe that Canada is a mess, and that he is the only leader who can clean that mess up; the only leader who can “Make Canada Great Again.”

He’s wrong. We don’t need Poilievre to make Canada great again, because all those rankings you just read prove what we, and the rest of the world, already know: Canada has never stopped being great.

We are far ahead of whoever is in second place. Don’t let a schemy, ambitious politician tell you otherwise.

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