The Uncomfortable Truth: Canada's Economic Future is Bleaker Than You Think

David Parker, April 3 2025 Silver is down. Bitcoin is down. The Nasdaq is down. But worst of all for Alberta, WTI Crude has crashed $5.60 — nearly 8% — since Trump announced new tariffs. Markets are pricing in what appears to be the start of a global recession.

The reaction was predictable. Markets despise uncertainty, and Trump’s economic agenda introduces a lot of it. No one really knows how these new tariffs will shake out or what kind of ripple effect they’ll have across global trade. Still, many will blame Trump for whatever economic pain comes next. They’ll say it was his policies that triggered the crash. But that story is too simple — and far too convenient.

The truth is much more uncomfortable. We’ve been living on borrowed time for decades. The global economy has been running on cheap debt and delusional optimism, and the bill is finally coming due. This collapse didn’t start with Trump. It didn’t even start with Biden. It was baked in long ago, the inevitable consequence of years of financial recklessness and cowardice from leaders who were too afraid to tell the public the truth.

We’ve grown fat and complacent, content to borrow endlessly from the future. But now the future is here. The United States government now spends more on interest payments than on its military — an unthinkable situation just a few years ago. And when you strip out deficit spending, the real state of the American economy is clear: it’s already in recession. Last year, the U.S. reported 2.8% GDP growth, but 6% of the economy was driven by government deficit spending. That means the actual economy shrank by over 3%. The illusion of prosperity was bought on credit.

If the U.S. — and by extension, the global economy — stays on this path, there are only two ways this ends. Either inflation explodes in order to devalue the debt, or interest rates, even at modest levels, cripple government budgets and drive us into a spiral of austerity and collapse. There is no soft landing from this. And as if that weren’t enough, the entire developed world is facing a fertility crisis. Populations are aging, birth rates are collapsing, and an older society simply consumes less and produces less. Economic growth, as we’ve known it, is dying.

We are not entering a new Golden Age. We are heading into a time of deep uncertainty and real pain. Most governments aren’t willing to admit that. But some are quietly preparing. The geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan lays out in clear terms how the Canadian government responded to this coming storm. Their solution was radical and aggressive: make Canada the most immigration-friendly nation in the developed world. Outside of countries bordering active war zones, no one has brought in more immigrants per capita than Canada.

The rationale behind this policy is clear. Canada is experiencing a demographic collapse. Like most developed countries, our fertility rate has plummeted far below replacement levels. Without immigration, we would face the same fate as Japan: an aging, shrinking, economically stagnant society. So, we brought in millions of people to keep the system going. On paper, it looked like a smart solution.

But in practice, it’s made life much harder for the average Canadian — especially for the younger generation. The cost of housing has become absurd. Infrastructure is overwhelmed. Wages have stagnated. And despite our growing population, Canada is not getting richer — we are getting poorer.

That is the core issue no politician wants to talk about: Canada is not productive. Over the last ten years, our GDP per capita — the real measure of a country’s prosperity — has barely grown. In fact, when adjusted for inflation, it’s essentially flat. That means all the growth we talk about is just population growth. We’re adding more people, but we’re not adding more wealth per person. We are becoming a larger country, but not a stronger one.

For most Canadians, life feels harder. But for younger Canadians, it feels nearly impossible. Home ownership is out of reach. Family formation is delayed or abandoned. The future feels more like a trap than a promise. A generation is being quietly sacrificed in the name of sustaining a broken economic model — one that inflates growth through immigration while delivering less and less value to the people already here.

The Boomers are passing on. Over the next 20 years, they will leave behind their wealth, their consumption, and their political legacy. What they will not leave is a functioning economy built on productivity, innovation, or national self-reliance. What they leave is a brittle system built on debt, delusion, and demographic desperation.

This is the story no one is telling: we are becoming a poorer country with more people and less to offer them. And unless we change course, that poverty will define the next chapter of Canadian history.