Why Canadians Absorb The Risk While Global Capital Takes The Reward
Mark,
I watched your Davos speech. Not because I enjoy being lectured by men in tailored coats standing on Alpine balconies, but because you now speak for Canadians. Including the ones who do not get flown to Switzerland to be told that the world is hard and expectations should be lowered accordingly.
You said we must take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
It sounded wise. Measured. Responsible.
But here is the problem. Most Canadians have been living in the world as it is this entire time. We did not need Davos to introduce it to us.
We live in the world where groceries climb faster than wages, where factories close months after ribbon cuttings, where young people are told to retrain for jobs that never materialize, and where governments call it success because the press release was ambitious.
You are not describing reality. You are explaining away the consequences of your own policy worldview.
When you talk about competitiveness, you never talk about ownership. When you talk about the future, you never talk about control. When you talk about cooperation, you never talk about who is protected and who is exposed.
Under your version of realism, Canada is always the adult in the room. We are told to be flexible. To be open. To be understanding. To absorb the shock while other countries quietly build walls, subsidies, and industrial strategies that serve themselves first.
You call that maturity.
Out here, it looks like being played.
You told the world the old order is not coming back. I agree. But let us be honest about which order you mean. You are not talking about outdated technology or inefficient systems. You are talking about the inconvenient idea that nations might still prioritize their own workers, their own industries, and their own economic independence.
That idea is not obsolete. It is simply inconvenient for global finance.
You have spent your career inside a system where risk is socialized and reward is private. Where governments absorb the downside so firms like Brookfield can collect the upside. Where public policy creates certainty for capital and uncertainty for everyone else.
Now you ask Canadians to accept uncertainty, transition, and sacrifice as the price of realism.
Funny how acceptance is always demanded from the people who never received the upside in the first place.
You speak about climate leadership and moral capital, yet the investment model you come from thrives on asset consolidation, infrastructure extraction, and returns protected by public guarantees. You do not challenge that system. You simply narrate it more gently.
Here is the part you never say out loud.
Canada is being asked to subsidize its own irrelevance.
We pour billions into projects we do not own, industries we do not control, and supply chains that do not answer to us. We are told this is leadership. We are told this is competitiveness. We are told this is what grown up countries do.
Grown up countries protect their leverage.
The United States does. Europe does. China certainly does. They subsidize their industries. They defend their markets. They choose their interests.
Only Canada is told that choosing itself is naive.
You want us to stop wishing for a different world. Fine.
Then stop pretending your words are detached from your incentives.
Stop dressing retreat up as sophistication.
Stop confusing inevitability with wisdom.
And stop telling the people who live with the consequences of liberal policy that they simply do not understand reality.
We understand it perfectly.
We are just tired of paying for it.
And if that makes us unsophisticated in Davos, so be it.
Out here, it sounds like solidarity.
And we are done being polite about it.
Cordially signed
One Apprehensive Melanie In Saskatchewan, Where Reality Still Exists!