Why economist-turned-politician Mark Carney is Canada's big hope
Canada's Liberal Party has won a fourth consecutive national election in a race that largely came down to which party would better stand up to US President Donald Trump. 'We are over the shock of American betrayal," Mark Carney, a former central banker and the leader of the Liberal Party, said in a victory speech early Tuesday morning. 'But we should never forget the lessons."
Indeed, there were many lessons, not the least of which is that Trump's provocations on tariffs and musings about making Canada the 51st US state probably would have been easier to laugh off if the country's leaders had taken steps to shore up its woeful productivity.
Productivity is Canada's Achilles heel. It is so bad that the 1.8% drop in labour productivity in 2023 was the worst among 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The poor performance, which carried into 2024, erased all productivity growth since 2017.
The Deutsche Bank Trade Weighted Canada Dollar Index, a measure of the nation's economic performance compared with trade partners, has plunged 9.44% over the past four years. A similar measure for the US dollar surged 11%.
No wonder the OECD predicts that growth in
Canada's
gross domestic product (GDP) per capita will rank last among its member countries over the next 40 years. 'A positive change in productivity could be the most significant factor in lifting economic growth, and the prosperity that goes with it," RBC Capital Markets noted in a recent report.
Luckily for Canada, Carney is more economist than politician.
Bloomberg News
describes him as 'a consummate crisis manager," having steered the Bank of Canada through the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Bank of England through the UK's highly disruptive decoupling from the EU in 2016. Disclosure: Carney was the chairperson of Bloomberg Inc until January, when he resigned that post to enter politics in Canada.
Comments by Carney on the campaign trail suggest he understands the challenge, promising a capital spending budget that would allocate tens of billions of dollars to investments in productivity-boosting
infrastructure
.
More spending is a start, but more is needed. Canada needs to reduce its notorious bureaucracy and the stiff internal trade barriers between provinces that impede the flow of goods, services and people. It also needs a system to match education and skills with jobs to accommodate its immigrant-fuelled population boom.
Here, a little could go a long way. RBC notes that businesses in Canada invest about half as much per worker as those in the US, a trend that has only become worse since the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Lower taxes, especially for businesses that embrace worker training, should be an immediate priority.
Carney could also help the cause by adopting a policy championed by Pierre Poilievre, head of the defeated Conservatives, to boost housing in a nation that does not have enough supply by tying municipal grants to a requirement that cities increase home construction by 15% a year.
Carney may have no choice, given that his party had about 43% of the national vote, falling short of the 172 seats needed for a majority in Canada's House of Commons. This means the government will be forced to work with other parties to pass budgets and other legislation, according to
Bloomberg News
. Carney is already talking about 'working constructively with all parties across parliament."
Although Canada's tax burden isn't bad relative to other advanced economies— with tax revenue amounting to 34.8% of GDP in 2023 as measured by the OECD—it's meaningfully higher than the US's 25.2% of GDP. Bringing the tax burden down would go a long way to spurring growth and productivity.
It's not like Canada doesn't have the fiscal space to accommodate lower taxes, with a budget deficit of around 2% of GDP versus 7% in the US. In its 2025 outlook, the OECD recommended that Canada could make its tax system more growth friendly by switching the burden from direct taxation to indirect and environmental taxes. Canada could also incentivize research and development, which the OECD notes is 'a key driver of a country's innovation capacity." Carney has already promised to run deeper budget deficits to cut income taxes and step up spending on infrastructure.
Fixing what ails Canada's economy will not be either easy or quick. But Carney's credentials as an economist and comments about never forgetting 'lessons" suggest he understands the root of the problem that Canada faces. ©Bloomberg
The author is the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion.
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News18
17 minutes ago
- News18
Iranians Must Reverse Their History For Redemption
Iranians have never been themselves since they ceased to be Persians, but it's never too late to reverse history. Now is the time On June 18, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a stark warning to the United States, declaring, 'Iran will never surrender". He said any American intervention in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict would result in 'irreparable damage". He further vowed that Israel would face punishment, marking the sixth day of an unprecedented aerial war that has claimed hundreds of lives and targeted critical infrastructure across Iran. Indeed, Iran is proving no mean force in the conflict, as Tel Aviv, ravaged by Iranian missiles, bears witness to. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), forged in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), may be weakened but not eradicated. The defiant Iranian stance comes amid escalating tensions in West Asia, fuelled by inflammatory remarks from US President Donald Trump and Israel's initiation of a relentless bombing campaign, including strikes on Tehran's nuclear and military facilities. As Israel targets a generation tied to the 1979 revolution, it needs to be seen whether resident Iranians would turn pro-US, as the Iranian diaspora has. Does Khamenei's tough talk echo a broader narrative about the resilience of his nation and its people? Nations are fundamentally defined by their natives, some of whom possess an indomitable spirit that defies defeat, even if they cannot always be ruled. Do Iranians have it in them? Certain peoples of certain lands cannot be defeated, only ruled with difficulty, as evident in Iran's current defiance amid extreme adversity. Russians, for example, fight like they play football — no great technique but brute force and sheer tenacity. The more they get killed, the more soldiers they send to the battlefield, as Stalingrad witnessed towards the end of WWII! Afghans and some Africans can be defeated but not ruled over. They will stay as anarchic as they have always been, whether under democracy, communism, monarchy or dictatorship. It's the essential culture that cannot be defeated in India. Even under some foreign influence, its basic Hindu nature cannot be obliterated. Is the Iranian mind similarly shaped? One is not sure. On the one hand, the Iranian diaspora is longing for assimilation with American society, their four-decade-old home. On the other, the world hardly gets to hear voices from resident Iranians, but have they been any better? IRANIANS HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN GULLIBLE Iran's history offers a complex backdrop to the question. Once the heart of the Persian Empire and a bastion of Zoroastrianism under the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), Iran underwent a profound transformation following the Arab Muslim invasion in 651 CE. The rise of Islam led to a steep decline in Zoroastrian followers, with their numbers dwindling to between 15,000 and 25,000 by 2012 in a population exceeding 82 million. The imposition of the jizyah tax and restrictive dhimmī laws under the Abbasids forced many Zoroastrians to convert or flee and seek refuge in India. This historical shift marked the beginning of Iran's transition from Persia to an Islamic identity, a change that was accelerated by foreign influences rather than an organic evolution. The 20th century brought further upheaval. The Pahlavi dynasty, particularly under Mohammad Reza Shah, sought to revive Iran's pre-Islamic heritage, valuing Zoroastrian contributions and enacting reforms to elevate minority status. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by Khomeini — backed by the CIA that went to the extent of hiring Saddam Hussein to assassinate the Shah, an attempt that failed — reversed these efforts, establishing a theocratic regime that suppressed secular and pre-Islamic traditions. This 'revolution' saw many Iranians — much like Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley since the reign of Sikandar Shah Miri (alias Butshikan) — flee abroad, diluting their cultural practices in diaspora. A contemporary dimension of this identity struggle must be highlighted: The role of US intervention. Recent protests, such as those sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in 2022 over the mandatory hijab law, were amplified by Western media and the Pentagon's propaganda machine as a ploy to undermine Iran's theocracy. While these protests symbolised resistance — women burning hijabs and cutting their hair in public — they subsided perhaps when the US deemed the ploy insufficient to topple the regime. Washington must be asked why it stopped echoing the voices of 'suppressed' Iranian women? Has the mission to free them been accomplished? Contrary to the media narrative, Iranian women are among the 'free-est" in the Islamic world, with minimal police action against hijab violations in rural areas, challenging the narrative pushed by some US-based Iranians who celebrate Israeli attacks. IRAN MUST TURN AROUND Drawing parallels with the tenacity of Russians, the anarchic resilience of Afghans and the enduring Hindu essence of Indian culture, a critical question must be raised about Iranians: Are they as resolute? Why did the people of Iran lose their pre-Islamic Persian identity, for example, not resisting the Abbasid invaders? 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The caveat that must be issued here is that US-backed regime changes warn against external solutions. Look at the pattern of American interventions wherever they succeeded: The US 'lost' Vietnam which was, thus, spared the horror. One of the worst students of the respective sociologies of other nations, the Americans have always left a nation-state they interfered in worse off when they left. Iran's liberation, if it comes, must depend on an internal awakening, drawing on its Zoroastrian and Persian roots, much like India's enduring Hindu culture. Speaking from an Indian perspective, neither the continuation of the pro-Pakistan, Islamist Iran that conventionally voted against New Delhi in UN forums on the question of Kashmir, nor a US-backed government that would never let India into the Chabahar port to counterbalance the Sino-Pakistani Gwadar port, is good. A CALL FOR SELF-DETERMINATION top videos View all As the aerial war rages and Khamenei's words resonate, Iran stands at a crossroads. If its people find resilience that they never did in the past, the world may get back glorious Persia, the people of which were essentially farmers but whose king build roads and ports, the language of which was influenced by fellow Indo-European Sanskrit, the science of which made one wonder how it could turn into an Islamic fundamentalist regime, and the economy of which, supported by King Darius' standardised currency, traded goods with India, China and the Roman Empire. (The author is a senior journalist and writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views) tags : Israel Iran tension Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: June 22, 2025, 20:39 IST News opinion Opinion | Iranians Must Reverse Their History For Redemption
NDTV
17 minutes ago
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"Congratulations, President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran's nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history," Netanyahu said in a brief video address. "May God bless our unshakeable alliance, our unbreakable faith," he concluded.
Hindustan Times
17 minutes ago
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Asaduddin Owaisi mocks Pakistan over US strikes on Iran: ‘Should Donald Trump win Nobel for this?'
As the United States struck three Iranian nuclear facilities overnight under what it called 'Operation Midnight Hammer', AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi asked Pakistan whether Donald Trump should win a Nobel Peace Prize for this. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi also mocked Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir for having lunch with US President Donald Trump. (ANI) Owaisi also lambasted Washington and said that it was "never an honest broker". Follow Iran Israel war live updates The AIMIM chief's remarks come against the backdrop of the recent American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as well as Pakistan's move to nominate the US President for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Pakistan had nominated Trump for the Nobel Prize, citing his "diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership" during the recent India-Pakistan conflict. "The US was never an honest broker. Whether it is Iraq, Libya or Palestine. The US is sitting completely silent on the ethnic cleansing taking place in Gaza," Owaisi told news agency ANI. He added that Washington's policy is to only "cover up the crimes of the Israeli government". Owaisi asked why "no one is talking about a genocide" that is happening in Gaza. ALSO READ | Donald Trump's plan, 125 aircraft, over 24 Tomahawk missiles: Pentagon reveals key details of Iran strikes "You went into Iraq, saying they were creating these weapons of mass destruction, and nothing was found over there. You removed Gaddafi in Libya, and nothing happened. Saddam was killed, and Gaddafi was killed. The US policy is only to cover up the crimes of the Israeli government. What is happening in Gaza? A genocide is happening, and no one is talking about it," the Lok Sabha MP said. Further, he questioned Pakistan's support for Trump and asked if they backed him only to see the strikes on Iran. "We should ask Pakistanis if they want Trump to get a Nobel Peace Prize..." Owaisi said, referring to the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. ALSO READ | Iran President says US entered conflict after witnessing 'Israel's impotence' He also mocked Pakistan's top military leadership and asked whether Islamabad's Army chief, Asim Munir, had lunch with the US President for this (US strikes on Iran)? "They all have been exposed today," Owaisi added. The AIMIM chief further slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him a "butcher of Palestinians". "A genocide is happening in Gaza, and the US is not worried about it. This man (Netanyahu), he has butchered Palestinians... He is doing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. History will remember him as the butcher of Palestinians," he added. Owaisi also raised concerns over the chances of serious consequences for India if a full-scale war breaks out in the Middle East region. He cited that over 16 million Indians reside in the Gulf and the Middle East, saying that "if that area erupts in a war, which unfortunately is very likely, then it will have a grave impact on the Indians living there". US President Donald Trump, early on Sunday, announced that Washington carried out strikes on Iran's three nuclear facilities. Following this, he urged Iran to agree to end the war with Israel. Later, Trump also warned Iran that any retaliation from Tehran against the US "will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed" on Sunday.
