To close out the year, we’ve asked our contributors and staff to make a prediction about 2023. You would think, after last year, that we’d have learned our lesson about making predictions, but we couldn’t resist. Feel free to save these if you want to embarrass us with them later.
Elon Musk will run for president and the housing market is in for some pain
By Rudyard Griffiths
1. After a quick amendment to the Constitution, Elon Musk will announce that he is running as an independent for the U.S. presidency, shocking the American political establishment with strong poll numbers, grassroots organization, and his own multibillion PAC.
2. Bitcoin will trade under $5,000 USD as the current crypto winter becomes an ice age.
3. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will step down early in the year as leader of the Liberal Party paving the way for an impressive outsider campaign by Mark Carney that will see him vanquish all comers as the economy sours.
4. The Canadian housing market will experience its worse correction since the 1990s as the Bank of Canada’s interest rates work their way through the economy, pushing the country into recession.
5. It will start to dawn on all of us in 2023 that we are on the cusp of an incredible age of abundance powered by machine learning, mNRA vaccines for cancer, early successes with hydrogen fusion, genetic engineering, and personalized medicine.
Raquel Dancho will be next year’s breakout political star
By Rahim Mohamed
One of the oddest things about getting older is seeing people who are younger than you surpass you. So it is with a tinge of envy that I predict that Conservative public safety critic Raquel Dancho—nearly four years my junior—will be next year’s breakout political star.
Dancho, member of parliament for the suburban Winnipeg riding of Kildonan—St. Paul, has flourished as a member of Pierre Poilievre’s shadow cabinet, notably holding Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s feet to the fire for misleading Canadians about the range of firearms banned under Bill C-21. (Dancho was recently ejected from the House for calling Mendicino a liar).
Dancho, a dynamic, bilingual speaker with impeccable conservative credentials will be the face of the Conservative Party’s prairie team, stepping into the shoes of long-serving Portage—Lisgar MP and ex-party leader Candice Bergen. Dancho will also be central to the party’s efforts to paint the Trudeau government as “soft on crime” and make public safety a major ballot issue heading into the next federal election.
Dancho may well go on to become Canada’s first prime minister born in the 1990s, but that’s a year-end prediction for a few Decembers from now.
