WARMINGTON: Poilievre addresses dystopia predicted for Canada in government report

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These Hunger Games will not be fiction or on a movie screen.

This will be the real kind of starvation and quest for survival — a dystopia that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s own Privy Council Office warns could be possible just 15 years from now as the country slides into the abyss.

Canadians will not be able to say they were not warned about a possible economic apocalypse that may have them hunting for rabbits and squirrels in parks to feed their families.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has warned them.

It’s “something from the post-apocalyptic TV show like Fallout or The Last of Us,” Poilievre said Tuesday, while delivering his costed election platform in Woodbridge. “But this is the forecast from Prime Minister Carney’s own government department, the Privy Council Office. Now Mr. Carney plans to continue the very policies that got us into this mess in the first place.”

It’s terrifying stuff. Will voters going to the ballot box this coming Monday heed the warning?

Poilievre was in Vaughan with many of his GTA candidates to promote his platform of tax cuts, home building, military expansion and the introduction of a new era of growth and property. But he had to address the elephant in the room.

This document, which Toronto Sun reporter Bryan Passifuime reported on, predicts a possible dire, dystopian future for the country. This is what a collapse of Canada’s economy would look like.

Saying it “staggers” him, the last line in the report says “people may start to hunt, fish and forage on public lands and waterways because they can’t afford groceries anymore,” said Poilievre.

What the hell? Stop the presses.

This is an early radar-style detection of an economic and social meltdown.

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“The report paints a terrifying picture of a spiral of economic depression and cost inflation. People may lose faith in the Canadian project, it says. It forecasts that this may trigger people to emigrate to jurisdictions where they perceive upward social mobility or other higher standards of living are easier to obtain,” said Poilievre. “If young workers leave, it may become harder to pay for our social programs for the older people in the country.”

It’s way worse than anything cancelled Don Cherry ever said or soon-to-be-going-to-jail Freedom Convoy truckers Tamara Lich or Chris Barber ever did.  It’s even more troubling than President Donald Trump talking about Canada becoming the 51st state or not being a country at all.

But this time it wasn’t an adversary that said it. And no one can suggest Poilievre is angry or saying Canada is broken. The report is screaming that our country is broken — loud and clear.

“This isn’t my prediction,” said Poilievre. “I’m quoting from the government here. If I had said this myself, you would’ve thought it was outlandish. But this is the government’s own predictions about how bad things are headed right now.”

If someone said there’s a crack in the wing of an airplane, would it be appropriate to keep that information secret so everybody on board goes down?

The predicted end of Canada as we know it by the year 2040 is something I was just not prepared to cover up as a columnist. Although it meant being on the receiving end of heckling and death stares from fellow media, I thought a document warning of the destruction of Canada was an important matter for Poilievre to address. He sounded the alarm just days out from the election.

So, I asked it – while being shouted down from behind for doing so and admonished by fellow reporters who appeared to run interference for such a question being asked. After 40 years of covering Canada — the good, bad and ugly — I will ask anybody anything I damn well please.

“I would be remiss as a reporter to not talk about what you talked about,” I said during the question-and-answer session after Poilievre announced his costed election platform. I also commented that in my decades as a reporter and columnist, I had never heard anything worse predicted for Canada.

And I have covered some tough days. But a Dickensian-era of despair in Canada needs to be warded off before it happens.

“I think you’re absolutely right,” said Poilievre. “I am shocked that this is not an interest group or an opinion columnist or even a think tank that is put out this report. It is not even just a government department. It is the Prime Minister’s personal department.”

Added Poilievre: “I think somebody has to ask Mark Carney, ‘Has he seen this report?’ His department wrote it. And what they are anticipating on the current trajectory is a total meltdown, a societal breakdown in Canada if we stay on the current track.”

And then Poilievre said exactly what I was thinking.

“Why this isn’t blazing the front pages of every news outlet in the country right now is beyond me. It’s just unbelievable. Unbelievable,” he said. “It blows my mind . . . It’s not enough for Mr. Carney to say, ‘Oh, well, the last 10 years is in the past. Forget about it. Stop bothering me about the past,’ he will say. This is the predicted future. His department foresees for Canada. More people may struggle to afford rent bills or groceries.”

The report wants of “stress” that “could worsen mental health challenges” and “would increase demand on social services in 2040, upward social mobility is almost unheard of in Canada.”

And it won’t be a movie.