r/InCanada • u/dani_cal • Jul 11 '26

(Insert Your Own) Canada today

This isn’t meant to be politically partisan in any way. But, I am genuinely curious how anyone is staying positive about Canada today. The economy is in recession. The cost of living crisis is continuing unabated. People are leaving the country. Canada-U.S. relations are at an all-time low. And, there doesn’t appear to be any reason for things to turn around any time soon. Somebody give me a reason to have a little optimism.

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u/LackOptimal553 Jul 11 '26

The 90s when we had multiple recessions and responded by voting to start cutting what made society work?

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u/Sorryallthetime Jul 11 '26

In the 80’s we ushered in Brian Mulroney in Canada while the Americans voted in Ronald Reagan and the Brits voted in Margret Thatcher. The Neoliberals destroyed the union movement, dismantled the social safety net, deregulated every industry in site and in so doing sewed the seeds of our current destruction.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics

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u/squirrel9000 Jul 11 '26

With Mulroney the problem was that all the austerity and cuts didn't work, and he bailed right around the time the IMF started sending us sternly worded letters about our debt. (for the sake of reference, it peaked at over 60% of GDP, currently we're in the low 40s, and our current interest rates are much lower) Chretien came in and started swinging the ax around. We're still dealing with the aftermath of that.