Canada has some of the most land, coastline, oil, lithium, uranium and potash in the world and 154 million acres of farmland it should be the richest country in the world. but its economy failed to grow in the last 10 years why? full breakdown below

The only golden and non-negotiable law of national success is: let the people build The US and Canada diverged so profusely, despite being of comparable size and resource base, because one embraced freedom whilst the other chose caution and control from the top down

In the 18th century, both Canadian and American colonies were subjected to harsh oversight by far flung rulers, who restricted trade and enforced high taxes on tradable goods This led to US independence in 1776, ushering in a golden age of free trade and Western expansion for the nation. Canada, on the other hand, pandered to European rule for an expensive century longer

When Trump proclaims “Canada only works as a state”, it is perhaps useful to consider that Canada was designed as a colonial outpost and endured persistent resource extraction with fiscal and trade policy determined in London throughout its early history

Canada even copied the questionable patterns of European land distribution. In Quebec, feudal arrangements lasted until 1854, with large swaths of land being managed by rent seeking nobles. This practice had existed in Ontario as well

America on the other hand profusely waved their middle finger at the concept of aristocracy. The Homestead Act led pioneers to new lands in search of new opportunities, and they were able to use that newly acquired land as collateral in budding credit markets. Canada eventually followed suit, but the Dominion Lands Act came more than a decade later, with much slower uptake

America’s position as a free nation also led them to industrialize faster with a builder first mindset, whereas Canada’s early economic model continued to optimize for resource extraction and exportation to markets like the US and Britain without generating as much domestic demand This precedent is arguably prevalent today, considering for example in 2023 Canada exported 81% of its total crude oil production, with 97% of those exports going to the United States

Canada decided to clone the European economic model of caution and control instead of embracing freedom and free markets The Canadian government played a hands on role in the development of the trans-continental railway, whereas the US favored a chaotic and sprawling pioneer led expansion

Whilst the US was fervently outpacing Canada by all means of early economic and industrial development, Canada demonstrated a talent for lawmaking The first “anti-trust” law in modern history, the Anti-Combines Act of 1889, was passed by the Canadian parliament prior to any monopolies actually being developed in Canada This is reminiscent of the way the EU regulates AI development today despite little to no meaningful AI actually being developed in Europe

Had Canada chose the path of freedom and entrepreneurship over top down caution and control, just how different might be the outcome had been, especially when you consider that both nations are of comparable size and natural resource base? In fact, Canada even has larger proven oil reserves than the US, despite the US being the world’s largest producer today

The US outperforms Canada in GDP by ~$25T, which is almost 1/4 of global GDP. On the other hand, Canada outperforms the US in terms of average life expectancy and has less inequality according to a statistical measure known as the Gini coefficient. To be precise, the average life expectancy in Canada is around 82 years old, whereas in the US it is around 79...

The dotted line in the graph belwo represents “perfect equality”, aka absolute communism. The yellow and orange lines demonstrate to what extent each of the US and Canada deviate from absolute communism Basically, interventionists in Canada traded trillions of dollars in output for 3 years of average life expectancy and a slightly more pronounced deviation from absolute communism Good trade? I think not

More shocking is that Canada didn't just underperform relative to the US, it underperformed relative to every global counterpart, including Germany whom deserves a hard time for its own underperformance in recent years

Another chart making headlines is Canada’s inverse correlation of recent population growth and productivity decline

The only thing that can save Canada is freedom and free markets Will the nation unshackle its industry from over regulation, embrace its energy base, service the global need for data centers and let the (40M) people build?