Canada’s Choice: Build Again, or Manage Decline

Mark Carney has a majority now.

For his “elbows up” supporters, that means no more excuses. He does not need to negotiate with the NDP or Bloc. He does not need to hide behind process, committees, roundtables, or consultations.

He has the power.

So now we find out what he actually believes.

Because for many Canadians, this country does not feel like it is turning around. It feels poorer. More divided. Less confident. Harder to trust.

Food bank use is at record highs. Canada’s fertility rate has fallen to a record low. More than $1 trillion in investment reportedly left Canada between 2015 and 2024. Government employment has grown faster than private-sector employment, with roughly one in five Canadian workers now in the public sector.

And now the entrepreneurial engine is sputtering.

According to CFIB, more businesses in Canada have closed than opened for six consecutive quarters. By Q2 2025, business exits hit 5.6%, while new entries fell to 4.8% by Q4, some of the weakest startup activity outside the pandemic. Worse, 55% of small business owners said they would not recommend starting a business in Canada today.

That is not a slowdown.

That is a warning.

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Canadian Economic Woes

You can see it on the street. Empty storefronts. Local restaurants hanging on by a thread. Owners working longer hours for less money. Menus getting more expensive while margins keep shrinking. Exhausted staff doing more with less. Tip prompts creeping higher as the basic economics of hospitality get worse.

A Dalhousie University report projected Canada could lose roughly 4,000 restaurants on a net basis in 2026. Restaurants Canada estimates 41% of foodservice businesses are losing money or just breaking even, while 41% of Canadians say they cut back on restaurant visits last year because of higher costs.

This is what decline looks like before people admit it is decline.

It shows up as fewer businesses opening. Fewer young families being formed. Fewer risk-takers willing to bet their future on this country. Fewer restaurants surviving. Fewer investors choosing Canada.

Carney speaks in the calm language of central bankers. Serious. Careful. Reassuring. The adult in the room. It is ingrained in him. But Canada does not need better narration for decline.

It needs a reversal.

To be fair, cutting the consumer carbon tax was a good move. Resetting the tone with Alberta matters, but without a real pipeline approval, tone is just tone. Taking the U.S. trade threat seriously matters. Trying to diversify exports beyond America matters.

But none of that is enough.

Where is the serious pro-growth agenda?

Where are the business tax cuts? Where are the major investment incentives for small businesses and entrepreneurs? Where is the unmistakable signal that Canada wants builders, founders, energy workers, miners, engineers, entrepreneurs, and capital to stay here?

Meetings are not prosperity.

Subsidies are not capitalism.

Roundtables do not build pipelines.

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Canadian Culture is the Problem

Canada’s problem is not a lack of potential. It is the opposite. We have energy, minerals, farmland, water, talent, ports, universities, cities, and rule of law.

Most countries would kill for our advantages.

Yet we keep acting like prosperity is something to apologize for.

Nowhere is this clearer than Alberta, my home province. Separatism is not the main story. It is the symptom. When a resource-rich province feels blocked, taxed, lectured, and ignored by a distant federal government, resentment builds.

Canada does not need to defeat Alberta.

Canada needs to unleash Alberta.

That means getting serious about pipelines, LNG, the tanker ban, the industrial carbon tax, and energy exports. The world needs secure energy. Canada has some of the most responsibly produced energy on earth. Yet we often treat it like a moral liability instead of a strategic advantage.

That is not virtue.

That is self-sabotage.

The deepest issue is cultural. Canada has become too comfortable with government management. Regulate it. Subsidize it. Tax it. Study it. Delay it. Control it.

Over time, that mindset changes a country. It demoralizes the entrepreneur.

Ambition becomes suspicious. Success becomes ever more taxable. Risk-taking becomes rare. Young people stop dreaming about building something here and start wondering where else they could live.

That is the real danger.

If your young generation does not believe in the future, you are not just facing an economic problem. You are facing national decline.

So this is Canada’s crossroads.

One path is managed scarcity. Bigger bureaucracy. Higher taxes. Slower approvals. More speeches about resilience while living standards erode.

The other path is national renewal. Lower taxes. Faster projects. More energy exports. More private-sector confidence. More trust in the individual.

Carney has a majority.

He has no excuse.

He can be the man who made decline sound reasonable.

Or he can be the leader who finally let Canada build again.

Show me something to get excited about, Mark.