Political economy or free-market economy?

0:00 Imagine you went into your doctor's office and suddenly

0:04 he injected you with some strange substance and you said, "What is it?" He said,

0:09 "It's a poison." You said, "Why did you inject me with a poison?" Immediately he

0:14 pulled out another syringe and injected you with an antidote.

0:18 And he said, "I injected you with that so

0:21 that I could save your life with this antidote." Well,

0:24 why would you have done any of it in the first place?

0:26 Well, because I wanted to save your life.

0:29 That's what I do.

0:30 That is exactly how liberal economics work.

0:34 They do massive economic damage to our country

0:38 and then they claim to be its solution, its antidote.

0:42 The government blocks home building with taxes and red tape,

0:45 then sets up a fourth federal housing agency to subsidize housing.

0:50 This Liberal prime minister blocks resource projects with high taxes,

0:54 19-year permitting delays, bans on oil shipping off the BC coast,

1:00 then creates massive new offices to get projects built that promise carveouts,

1:04 bailouts, and handouts to favorite businesses.

1:08 He blocks investments with high taxes,

1:11 drives $1.2 trillion of pension fund out of the country,

1:14 and then subsidizes investment with new corporate welfare programs.

1:18 He drives up the cost of living

1:20 and the cost of food with inflationary money printing,

1:23 carbon taxes, and red tape.

1:25 Then prints even more money to give people cash payments

1:29 to help them with the cost of the the food he inflated.

1:33 He blocks development, taxes production, regulates investment, delays permits,

1:37 drives capital away, kills projects, and crushes builders.

1:41 Then when the economy slows down, he shows up with a subsidy, a fund, a bank,

1:46 a summit, a task force, and a photo op to solve the very problem that he caused.

1:52 So instead of just following the hypocratic oath to do no harm,

1:58 this government does plenty of harm and then claims that it provides the cure.

2:04 As the great Ronald Reagan said, "If something moves, a liberal taxes it.

2:07 If it keeps moving, he regulates it.

2:10 And when it stops moving, he subsidizes it.

2:13 Why not just get out of the way and let things move?

2:16 Why not let the builder build, the worker work,

2:18 the investor invest, the farmer farm, the minor mine,

2:20 the manufacturer manufacturer, the trucker truck,

2:23 because then there would be no role for the liberal politician.

2:27 No power, no control, no permit to authorize, no check to hand out.

2:32 If you could just launch a business, produce resources, grow food, build homes,

2:36 then the prime minister and those within his castle walls would be irrelevant.

2:40 Instead, he forces everything to go through him.

2:44 You basically creates a regulatory prison and charges a ransom

2:49 for anyone who wants to build something to get out of it.

2:53 Want to build want a place to live or food in your stomach?

2:57 Wait for the government to send you back some of your money.

3:00 Want to build a home or a pipeline?

3:02 Kneel before the king and seek his good graces.

3:06 Want investment for your enterprise?

3:07 Bow before the state.

3:11 State controlled crony capitalism is how

3:13 this liberal prime minister enriched himself.

3:15 In fact, his Brookfield investments profit off

3:18 government favors that typically help a tiny group

3:21 of politically powerful but unproductive takers at the expense

3:26 of the great mass of productive makers.

3:29 Help is the sunny side of control.

3:33 The illusion of action from people who caused the problem.

3:36 The illusion of investment from the people who drove the investment away.

3:40 The illusion of growth from those who blocked the growth.

3:43 Because in this liberal model, the economy does not belong to the people.

3:47 It belongs to the politicians, bureaucrats,

3:49 and other authorities who control it and the powers that influence them.

3:55 That is the real debate in our econom in our economy today.

3:58 A political economy versus a market economy.

4:01 A political economy allocates wealth based on power.

4:04 A market economy allocates wealth based on free choice.

4:09 Enter the sovereign wealth fund that has no wealth.

4:13 Another liberal illusion.

4:16 Countries with real sovereign wealth funds like Singapore, Norway, Saudi Arabia,

4:21 the United Arab Emirates accumulate surpluses year after year which they

4:25 they squirrel away and invest to grow bigger returns for their people.

4:29 This Liberal prime minister has no surplus to invest.

4:32 In fact, the net equity of this government is negative $1.3 trillion.

4:39 If you take all the assets and deduct all the liabilities, that is what's left.

4:44 We call that our national debt.

4:46 Just yesterday, he announced that he's running or two days ago,

4:50 he announced that he's running the 11th

4:53 Liberal deficit put on the national credit card.

4:56 More debt, more taxes, more costs, more on the credit card.

5:00 He's just another liberal.

5:02 In fact, he's doubled the deficit since Trudeau left office.

5:04 So, he has no debt wealth to put into the wealth fund.

5:09 He has something else, debt.

5:12 He wants to put $2 billion more on our national

5:15 credit card to invest in politically connected companies.

5:18 And who will get the money?

5:20 Those with political power.

5:22 The Liberal Prime Minister plans to hold yet another summit,

5:25 this time with multinational corporations and billionaires

5:28 to offer them access to this government money

5:30 and allow them to circumvent the brutal red

5:32 tape and taxes he imposes on all other businesses.

5:37 He will demand that these businesses who ultimately get permits

5:42 to go ahead and go around the restrictive red tape and taxes,

5:46 we'll give the government an ownership stake.

5:49 Uh it's almost like charging a ransom for letting

5:53 them out of the regulatory prison he has created.

5:56 Now, the million or so small businesses without

5:59 lobbyists will still be stuck in that regulatory prison,

6:02 forced to pay taxes to subsidize their larger,

6:05 more politically powerful competitors.

6:07 It's the golden rule.

6:08 Those with the gold make the rules.

6:11 The small elite turns power into wealth, wealth back into more power,

6:16 and that more power back into more wealth.

6:19 And the cycle continues until they have it all.

6:22 They get richer, making everyone else poorer.

6:25 In a political economy, they profit not by having the best product,

6:28 but by having the best lobbyists.

6:30 It's not how much value you create for customers.

6:32 It's how much influence you have over ministers,

6:34 regulators, agencies, and insiders.

6:36 The most important commodities in the political economy is influence and power.

6:42 In a market economy, you get ahead by serving the people.

6:45 You sell a product only if someone wants to buy it.

6:49 You hire a worker only if a worker freely chooses the job.

6:54 and the employer values the work.

6:56 You attract investment only if you can pro prove

6:59 that you can create more value tomorrow than you consume today.

7:03 That is the magic of the free market.

7:05 You cannot get ahead without making someone else better off.

7:09 And we know that because they would not engage

7:11 in the voluntary transaction if it did not make them better off.

7:15 That's why in a free market when you buy something,

7:18 you say thank you to the vendor.

7:20 They often don't say you're welcome.

7:21 They say thank you back.

7:23 It's because the seller values the money more than what they

7:25 sold and the buyer values the product more than what they paid.

7:30 If you want an apple and and have an orange

7:32 and I want an orange and want an apple and we trade,

7:34 we still have an apple and orange between us,

7:35 but we're both richer because each of us has

7:37 something worth more to us than what we had before.

7:40 Thus, the double thank you when we tra when we trade.

7:43 By contrast, a state controlled economy is based entirely on force.

7:48 Everything the government does, every single thing,

7:52 it does by force because taxation is mandatory and not voluntary.

7:58 And that is why no one ever writes thank you on their tax form.

8:04 Because the transaction was imposed even if it were a good transaction,

8:09 it was not a free one.

8:11 Free exchange allows the work for wages,

8:13 product for payment, and investment for interest.

8:16 a free people making free choices, building a free country.

8:19 By contrast, a government-controlled economy works differently.

8:23 As I said, it operates by coercion.

8:26 It means and and in relationships of coercion,

8:29 the strongest always win and the weakest always get crushed.

8:33 As the prime minister liked to quote Thusidities in his Davos speech,

8:37 the strong do what they will, the weak do what they must.

8:40 if taxes, regulates, and blocks the productive economy,

8:43 then uses your own money to create programs

8:46 that promise to fix the damage it caused.

8:48 This is not Robin Hood.

8:50 It is the sheriff of Nodingham.

8:52 It takes from the workers, builders, taxpayers, and investors,

8:55 running their money through bureaucracy, consultants, lobbyists, insiders,

8:59 and letting a few drops trickle back down

9:01 to the people who paid for it in the first place.

9:04 This is statec controlled crony capitalism.

9:06 A system where government concentrates money in in fewer hands based on power.

9:11 A system where most businesses and citizens never

9:14 have the political clout needed to get a meeting,

9:16 win a carveout, secure a subsidy, or escape that regulatory prison.

9:20 And make no mistake, regulatory prison is what it is.

9:24 You want to buy a You want to build a mine?

9:26 Wait.

9:26 A pipeline?

9:27 Wait.

9:28 A home?

9:28 Wait.

9:29 a port, a road, a transmission line,

9:31 a factory, a terminal, a refinery, a railway.

9:34 Wait, wait, wait.

9:35 Fill out the forms, hire consultants, lobby the minister, please the regulator,

9:40 win some political influence, and maybe, just maybe, you'll have a chance.

9:44 After years of delay, you might get government support,

9:47 as the prime minister likes to call it.

9:49 But if a project is good enough to receive regulatory support,

9:53 why not just approve it in the first place?

9:56 Why should government why should government why should a company

10:00 have to win over a politician to get something built?

10:03 Why should a project have to give up a piece of its ownership

10:06 to the state in order to escape the prison of the heavy regulations?

10:12 This is the model the model that the Liberal prime minister believes in.

10:18 It's because that's the model that enriched him in the first place.

10:22 not by doing business in the marketplace,

10:24 by by using political power to get favors for his company.

10:28 We remember that he pushed for heat pumps pump subsidies.

10:31 Well, Brookfield sells heat pumps.

10:33 Remember he pushed for money printing inflation.

10:36 Well, the CEO of Brookfield confirmed on May 20th

10:42 of last year that Brookfield profits off of inflation.

10:46 many of our our things are regulated rate based or contractual

10:49 in nature and inflation is actually a positive to the numbers.

10:53 So as inflation comes in it actually

10:55 helps the revenue streams of those businesses.

10:57 End quote said the CEO of Brookfield.

11:01 And then of course this is a prime minister who said a little over a year ago

11:06 that he had successfully lobbyed for a more expensive

11:10 form of so-called sustainable aviation fuel right before Brookfield.

11:15 his company invested a billion dollars in that same fuel.

11:19 So forcing Canadian passengers to pay higher airline fees

11:24 for this more pricey fuel which then his company profited from.

11:29 This is not business.

11:31 This is political manipulation.

11:33 It raises the cost for everyone,

11:35 especially those who don't have political power.

11:38 That is the difference between the real economy and the protected economy.

11:42 In the real economy, inflation crushes families.

11:44 It raises grocery bills.

11:45 It raises rent, mortgage payments.

11:47 It costs you more for gas, heat, and electricity.

11:50 It shuts young people out of home ownership and starting families.

11:53 But in a political economy,

11:54 inflation can be used as a revenue tool for for elites and schemers.

11:59 Government creates the rule.

12:00 The rule creates the market.

12:01 The insider sees the rule coming.

12:03 The insider invests.

12:04 The consumer pays the politically connected profit.

12:07 And everyone else is told this is progress.

12:10 And Canadians will pay the price through higher inflation at the grocery store,

12:14 taxes on their paycheck, and debt interest uh on future generations.

12:19 We've seen this movie before.

12:21 I just mentioned that there's going to be a big summit where a whole

12:24 series of multinationals and billionaires will

12:26 come and feast on this $25 billion.

12:29 This is not a new idea.

12:30 In 2016, the Liberal government hosted another international summit

12:35 of investors at the Shanganger Hotel to unveil the infrastructure bank,

12:39 a 45 billion pot of gold that went to subsidize the investments of the insiders.

12:45 So, here we are 10 years later,

12:47 the same Liberal government holding the same kind of summit

12:49 to allow the same elites to to feast on the same debt.

12:54 Since the creation of the infrastructure bank,

12:56 it has lost hundreds of millions of dollars

12:59 for its uh for its first seven years.

13:01 Its investment income failed to cover even its operating costs.

13:04 The parliamentary budget officer found that when

13:07 all levels of government were included, two out of three dollars uh for projects

13:11 funded by the bank came from the taxpayer, not from businesses.

13:15 Taxpayers lost in insiders won.

13:18 The bank spent a4 billion on operations.

13:21 The CEO makes $600,000 a year.

13:23 It paid out $8 million in bonuses in one year.

13:26 That is why the parliamentary committee parliamentary committee

13:29 studied it thoroughly and recommended it be eliminated.

13:32 And now instead of doing that, they replace it with we

13:35 we sorry they augment it with yet another slush fund.

13:39 Then again in September of 2024,

13:41 the the Liberal Finance Minister Christia Freeland pledged

13:44 to create a Canadian growth fund seated with taxpayers dollars

13:47 to try and bring back the $12 trillion

13:51 of pension funds that this Liberal government has driven abroad.

13:54 And who was hired?

13:55 Who was tapped to administer that fund?

13:58 Brookfield barely two years ago.

14:00 And here we go again.

14:02 Another summit, another fund, another transition office,

14:06 another name for the same old liberal idea,

14:08 the illusion of change, the reality of more of the same.

14:11 As Dejar Jan wrote that the proposed fund

14:14 draws strong parallels back to the infrastructure bank,

14:16 the Montreal Economic Institute called it essentially

14:19 the Canadian Infrastructure Bank by a different name.

14:22 Same poison, new label, more costs, more more corruption,

14:26 more debt, more taxes, more on the credit card.

14:29 This Liberal prime minister is just another Liberal.

14:33 We've seen how we can build wealth when

14:37 we unlock the power of the free enterprise system.

14:39 The the the the answer is not to weigh

14:42 the the economy down with even more government agencies on top

14:47 of the countless that already existed a year ago

14:49 and the 13 new ones that the prime minister has since created.

14:53 We need to unblock and unlock the potential of our resources and our people.

14:58 The answer is more economic freedom.

15:00 The freedom to build, to produce, to hire, to invest, to compete.

15:03 We must replace an economy of carveouts, handouts,

15:06 and bailouts for insiders with free choice, opportunity, and affordability.

15:11 If if a project is safe, lawful, and in the national interest, just approve it.

15:14 If a company can build without taxpayers money, let it build now.

15:18 If workers can build bigger paychecks by producing energy,

15:22 minerals, food, homes, steel, aluminum,

15:24 copper, and more, get the government out of the way and let them do it.

15:27 Let businesses compete for customers, not political favor.

15:31 Let entrepreneurs win with the best product, not the best lobbyists.

15:34 Let workers earn a powerful paycheck, not wait for government handouts.

15:38 Let Canadians build sovereign wealth, not borrow sovereign debt.

15:42 That is the choice.

15:44 statecontrolled crony capitalism where political

15:46 influence becomes the most valuable commodity or free market where work savings

15:51 risk-taking service create prosperity for everyone.

15:55 The options are a topdown state controlled crony

15:59 capitalist system or a bottomup merit-based free enterprise system,

16:03 a political aristocracy or Mr.

16:06 Speaker an economic meritocracy.

16:09 That is the choice.

16:13 We want this to be a country that restores the promise

16:15 to the people that anyone who works hard can enjoy affordable home,

16:19 a safe street, good food on the table, realize their dreams.

16:23 A country where our people get ahead

16:26 by having the best product and the best work,

16:29 not by having the most political influence.

16:31 We do not want a country of bureaucrats and busy bodies,

16:34 of gatekeepers and gri grifters, of tax collectors and toll masters.

16:38 We want a country of artists and adventurers,

16:42 entrepreneurs and explorers, workers and warriors, pioneers and patriots.

16:48 That's the country we seek to build.

16:49 Now, let's get building.

16:50 Thank you.