LILLEY: Unemployment is up, economy tanking, it's not about Trump

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Canada’s jobless numbers could have been worse in April – in fact, Statistics Canada is pretty clear they would have been worse if not for the election.

The month jobs report was released Friday showing unemployment rising to 6.9%, up from 6.7% in February.

StatsCan says we lost 31,000 manufacturing jobs last month, in part due to tariff strife with the Americans. Those losses were offset, at least statistically, by adding 37,000 government jobs – many of those part-time and temporary jobs for the federal election.

After all the jobs lost and added were tallied, the economy added just 7,400 new jobs last month while adding 53,600 people to the labour force population of those aged 15 and over. There are now 1.5 million people counted as unemployed in Canada –188,000 more than a year ago.

It’s the latest sign of Canada’s deteriorating economy and, no, it can’t all be blamed on Donald Trump.

Canada’s unemployment rate has been rising steadily for some time, long before Trump’s return to the White House. A year ago, our unemployment rate stood at 6.1%, and in April 2023 it was just 5%.

Things are even worse in Ontario, which now has an unemployment rate of 7.8%, second only to Newfoundland. Two years ago, Ontario had among the lowest unemployment rates at 4.9%.

For young people in the province, aged 15-24, the unemployment rate stands at a staggering 15.8%. Alberta’s youth unemployment stands even higher at 17.2%.

Do you still wonder why there was a generational divide in the election two weeks ago with older Canadians, especially retirees, flocking to the Liberals while younger Canadians leaned Conservative? Liberal policies have brought us to this place where our economic future is being hollowed out, but it’s been good times for those with appreciated assets like homes that are paid off and well-padded investment portfolios.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem is warning of economic trouble ahead – apparently missing the carnage before him.

“A long lasting trade war poses the greatest threat to the Canadian economy,” Macklem said Thursday.

“A prolonged global trade war would have severe economic consequences. It would reduce growth and increase unemployment.”

That increase in unemployment has been happening for some time. The prospect that we could see even more people thrown out of work as a result of tariffs and economic instability caused by Donald Trump’s policies simply speaks to the underlying weakness of the Canadian economy, an issue not often discussed nor explored in the just completed election.

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Ratings agency Fitch warned of our weak economic state the day after the election when they stated plainly that if the Liberals followed through on their promised spending commitments, it would increase the deficit and debt at a time of fiscal weakness for the country.

“Canada has experienced rapid and steep fiscal deterioration, driven by a sharply weaker economic outlook and increased government spending during this electoral cycle,” Fitch said in an April 29 statement.

Translation, our economy was already weak before Trump, in part due to poor government policy and overspending, and things aren’t likely to get better thanks to Trump’s actions and continued government overspending and poor policy decisions.

Remember that government report that warned of a dystopian future for Canada by 2040, a real divide between those who own their own homes and those who could never dream of it? The report warned food insecurity could get so bad that people would turn to hunting and foraging on public land to feed themselves.

Liberals and their friends in the media spent the last week of the campaign trying to discredit that government report, claiming it wasn’t real.

The economic news we are seeing before us, especially the disparity in unemployment, is literally the groundwork of that report’s warnings being laid. Unless things change, that frightening future laid out by top bureaucrats is exactly what we are headed towards.

blilley@postmedia.com