David Staples: Economic pain will wash away Trudeau’s agenda of aggressive social change in 2024

Three gigantic waves will roll over Alberta in 2024, political tsunamis that will disrupt our politics and help wash away the momentum for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s agenda of aggressive social change.

The first wave? For the first time in many years, fears about immigration will become a major issue even in welcoming Alberta.

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The mass of new immigrants allowed in by the Trudeau Liberals is already a fierce preoccupation in Toronto, Trudeau’s former electoral stronghold. Folks there shudder and fret about the unprecedented number of newcomers competing for already scarce resources, such as apartments, houses and jobs.

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The federal government had an aggressive target of 465,000 immigrants in 2023, said Colin Singer of the government site Immigration.ca, but Canada is projected to exceed that with 526,000 new permanent residents in 2023, up 20 per cent from 438,000 in 2022.

But permanent new residents are just one part of the immigration explosion. In 2022, Canada’s population grew by more than one million people for the first time in its history, with 58 per cent of that number temporary residents, such as workers, students and asylum claimants,  said Mikal Skuterud, an economic professor at the University of Waterloo.

In total, Canada now has 2.5 million non-permanent residents, up from 1.7 million one year ago, reports Statistics Canada.

The highest population growth rate came in Alberta, +1.3 per cent (with the national average at +1.1 per cent).

Of course, earlier this year Alberta actively pushed for new immigration with its “Alberta is calling” campaign. “Alberta is a land of opportunity for so many!” Premier Danielle Smiths said on social media in March, noting they were updating the program to make it easier for in-demand workers and entrepreneurs to become permanent residents here. “We need more skilled workers to keep our economy firing on all cylinders!”

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It could be that Alberta’s economy will continue to boom relative to the rest of Canada and that bustling Edmonton and Calgary will keep up with housing demand. At the same time, as welcoming as Albertans can be, we can also turn against newcomers, as seen in 1982 when Ralph Klein, then mayor of Calgary, worried about a housing crunch, homeless people, and rising crime. Klein bitterly complained about Eastern “bums and creeps” coming here, unskilled workers who he said were resorting to robbery.

The fear is that Canada’s record immigration isn’t improving our economy, but is hurting it. Canada’s GDP contracted by 4.4 per cent in the third quarter, reported the Bank of Canada. “Signs of an economic slowdown have been multiplying.”

William Robson of the C.D. Howe Institute explained the downward dynamic in this way, “Immigration is driving a historic surge in Canada’s population. At the same time, Canadian wages and living standards are stagnant. That is a bad combination. More workers and less capital are putting Canada on a path to a low-productivity, low-wage economy.”

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No matter how well Alberta handles immigration, there’s no escaping the second wave, the massive increases in grocery bills and high interest rates. This second tsunami has been threatening to drown us for more than a year. It’s also driving down the popularity of Trudeau. Last January Trudeau had an approval rating of 42 per cent, Angus Reid said. In October 2023, it dropped to 31 per cent. In Alberta, his approval was at just 24 per cent, with 60 per cent strongly disapproving of Trudeau. 

Trudeau now promises to double down on his yesteryear platform of aggressive social change, but this program is not holding up well. It’s going to be swamped in 2024 by the third wave, an intense focus on economic policy. This new centre of attention will suck up almost all the energy in Canadian politics, draining enthusiasm from the Trudeau Liberal preoccupation with gender, climate and racial issues.

It’s hard, after all, to get worked up about the Trudeau government’s latest initiative for free tampons in men’s washrooms when you’re worried about paying your bills, let alone ever buying a house.

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The sharpest of conservative leaders will no longer be so easily drawn into bitter culture war spats. They won’t have to, as their agenda of efficiency, prosperity, careful spending, and productivity will dominate.

As witnessed by the United Conservative convention, the party’s base wants Smith to push hard against Trudeau’s program on trans issues and racial quotas in hiring and promotion. But based on Smith’s muted response to this mandate, I wonder if she’s realizing the obvious, that there’s no great need to battle so hard, that Trudeau’s wedge issues will simply be washed away by the shifting tide, by a new imperative, the need for all hands on deck to have a razor focus on salvaging our ship-wrecked economy.

dstaples@postmedia.com

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