The country reported lower-than-expected consumer price index (CPI) numbers in March, but the reason may be a bit surprising.
Trump’s Policies Dent Canadian Inflation Ahead of Election
President Donald Trump is perhaps public enemy number one in Canada. His rhetoric about an annexation of the country in order to turn it into the “51st state” has left a bad taste in the mouths of almost every Canuck. But on Tuesday, Statistics Canada announced that inflation had lowered from 2.6 in February to 2.3 in March, largely due to Trump’s policies.
The key drivers in the reduction of the pace of inflation were lower prices for fuel and discounted travel tours, as Canadians limited their travel to the U.S. The cost of travel tours decreased by 4.7% in March while price for air travel to the U.S. tumbled 12% year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada.
All of this while the country is in the midst of a historic election that has somehow placed Trump at its center. After almost a decade of liberal rule, Canada’s economy has cratered, with GDP per capita now trailing that of its much larger southern neighbor. Housing costs have doubled, immigration has gone unchecked, with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau painfully admitting that his immigration policy was an utter failure. Crime has skyrocketed to the point of earning Canada the dubious distinction of “car theft capital of the world,” where a car is stolen every five minutes.
(Canada’s Liberal party decimated the economy for nearly a decade, with GDP per capita now lagging that of the U.S. / Statistics Canada)
This grim scenario, what conservative pundits have dubbed, “the lost Liberal decade,” had given pro-crypto Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, an almost guaranteed ticket to the Prime Minister’s office, until Trump blurted out the words, “51st state.” Conservative and liberal alike condemned the U.S. president’s rhetoric, and all of a sudden, new Liberal Party leader and current unelected Prime Minister Mark Carney, began surging in the polls.
Any association to Trump, including being a conservative in some camps, now draws shunning glares in Canada. But maybe Tuesday’s lower-than-expected inflation numbers, an unintended consequence of Trump’s reckless rhetoric, will act as consolation for the economic pain that likely awaits all Canadians if Carney and his team of inept Liberal ideologues win another election.