A graduating Beedie School of Business student before a convocation ceremony at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C., on June 12.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Mark Sakamoto is a tech entrepreneur, author and lawyer.
I consider this piece a public cry for help.
Some folks on our progressive flank, which is my political habitat, have come to believe that our money is their money. The federal government has been raising spending year after year, believing that big problems can only be solved by big government. As a result, the bureaucracy has swelled by a whopping 40 per cent. This can only be described as irrational exuberance.
Government spending has far outstripped revenue. It has created a structural and permanent deficit. Ironically, this cash drain herds the country into the very divisiveness progressives seek to overcome.
From an economic perspective, the folks that are going to get us out of this ditch look a lot like my grandpa, Hideo Sakamoto. He unfairly lost almost everything during the Second World War when the government targeted Japanese Canadians, but after the war he got up, dusted himself off, received a bank loan and bought some farmland outside of Medicine Hat.
My grandfather risked the meagre amount he had left and made a go of it. In so doing, he raised a family of three and employed hundreds of Albertans. This is the kind of person our current structural deficit is harming. It economically condemns those we need to encourage most. It makes us think small and feel exposed.
It wasn’t always this way.
We used to be respected. Lester B. Pearson was a key architect of the modern world’s rules-based global order. The late Brian Mulroney helped end the scourge of apartheid.
On matters of global consequence, nobody cares what Canada thinks today. Nor should they. For decades, we’ve been the guy that excuses himself to find the restroom just before the restaurant bill arrives. Our greatest generation enlisted and gave hell to the Nazis in Europe, yet today we don’t have the resources to offer even a few fighter jets to those defending democracy’s front line in Ukraine.
At the exact moment the world needs the decency that is the very essence of the Canadian spirit, our voice grates. It’s pay up or shut up time for Canada.
We used to talk. The Constitution is clear on who is responsible for what. Great leaders like Saskatchewan’s Tommy Douglas fathered public health care and Alberta’s Peter Lougheed created the Alberta Heritage Fund. Pierre Trudeau enacted the most important piece of legislation in our country’s history: the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These transformative policies were possible when politics was not the arena for grand signalling, but for grand thinking. For grand effort and grand results.
I would guess that every premier in the country has at least one on-the-ground solution for the problems we collectively face. They should be brought to the fore at meaningful first ministers’ conferences and scaled nationally. If something works for Premier Tim Houston in Halifax, it has a good shot at working for Premier Wab Kinew in Winnipeg.
We used to be realistic. Government can’t solve everything, but reasonable people can solve almost anything. How have we let dogma blind us from real progress? We’re the second-largest land mass in the world with some very cold months. Newfoundland is never going to be Amsterdam. But we can have a cleaner environment with way less carbon emissions. There is every reason to believe that Canada can be the world’s great energy powerhouse.
Entrepreneurs are the ones who are going to create a dynamic economy with modern jobs, not rushed government schemes. Can we just stop all of that and instead ensure the conditions are in place to let the innovators do their thing? Like, you know, create jobs. From AI to clean energy to rare minerals, this should be Canada’s moment.
I believe continuing down this road will invariably drive my two daughters out of this country. I fear they will soon come to see Canada as a market not productive enough to spend a career or a place too unkind to raise their own kids. They’ll vote with their feet. They’ll leave. And that would break my heart.
I believe other parents are worried about that, too. When we tolerate the current status quo, we are being polite at our peril. What we really want to say is: no thanks.
Canadians are endowed with a sincere generosity of spirit. We’re good neighbours. We care about each other. If our federal government can reduce the amount it spends on itself, our tax dollars can reflect our collective intent.
Hideo’s children followed their dad into business, paying a lot of taxes and creating thousands of jobs along the way. I hope that young Canadians today are afforded the same opportunity to shine.