On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, L. Wayne Mathison responds to someone who we shouldn’t mock, because perhaps he was dropped on his head too many times as a child or perhaps he’s a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party:
There’s a reflex in Canadian politics that drives me nuts. If you criticize a prime minister hard enough, someone eventually says, “You’re just emotional. History will fix it.”
No. History doesn’t fix weak math.
Let’s stop pretending this is about vibes. Under Justin Trudeau, federal spending didn’t just rise during COVID. It exploded before it. Deficits were normalized in good years. Productivity flatlined. GDP per capita drifted backward relative to the U.S. Housing costs detached from incomes. Regulatory layers multiplied while investment quietly left for friendlier jurisdictions.
That isn’t hysteria. That’s structural decline.
The “he governed for the times” excuse is soft thinking. Leaders are supposed to anticipate trade-offs, not amplify them. When you stack carbon taxes, capital constraints, pipeline cancellations, and endless approval timelines onto a resource economy, you don’t get moral progress. You get stalled growth and capital flight. Then you blame grocers and global headwinds.
And let’s be blunt. The brand was performance politics. Identity theatre. International applause. But governance is boring. It’s about compounding effects. Interest payments. Productivity curves. Regulatory drag. Trudeau governed like narratives create wealth.
They don’t.
Even his defenders quietly admit course corrections were needed. If policies now require rollback or “revision”, that’s not vindication. That’s damage control.
Time won’t turn fiscal drift into foresight. It won’t convert stagnant productivity into hidden genius. Mulroney is respected because NAFTA and fiscal reforms strengthened the country long term. Results earned that.
If in twenty years Canada’s energy capacity, housing stock, productivity, and fiscal health look stronger because of Trudeau’s foundations, fine. I’ll concede it.
But if the next generation is still digging out from regulatory paralysis and debt overhang, nostalgia won’t rewrite the ledger.
Simple standard. Did living standards rise sustainably?
If not, no amount of mood reframing saves the record.
