This month, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland proclaimed that “Canada is the best country in the world.” But it’s a hard statement to square with the evidence. Canadians are getting poorer relative to their peers in many other countries and our living standards are falling. This trend is expected to continue well into the future, unless our policymakers make significant changes.

Economists often measure living standards by real gross domestic product (GDP) per person—in other words, the inflation-adjusted monetary value of what a country produces in goods and services divided by its population.

As noted in a new study published by the Fraser Institute, from 2002 to 2014, Canada’s GDP per-person growth roughly kept pace with the rest of the OECD. But from 2014 to 2022, the latest year of available comparable data, Canada’s average annual growth rate declined sharply, ranking third-lowest among 30 countries over the period. Consequently, in dollar terms, Canada’s GDP per person increased only $1,325 during this time period, compared to the OECD average increase of $5,070 (all values in 2015 U.S. dollars).

Moreover, between 2014 and 2022, Canada’s GDP per person declined from 80.4 percent of the U.S. level to 72.3 per cent.  We lost substantial ground to key allies and trading partners like the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.

According to OECD projections, Canada will have the lowest projected average annual growth rate of GDP per person (at 0.78 per cent) from 2030 to 2060. That’s  when our GDP per person will be below the OECD average by $8,617. This represents a swing of more than $11,000 from where it was in 2002.

Why is this happening?

There are several factors that have contributed to this. They include historically weak business investment over the past decade, a substantial shift in the composition of permanent and temporary immigrants towards those with less education and fewer skills, and subdued technological innovation and adoption. These factors have combined to produce very low or negative labour productivity growth, due to weak growth in the education and skills of the average worker and the amount of capital (namely plant, machinery and equipment) per worker.

While most advanced countries are experiencing similar trends, the situation in Canada is among the worst. Consequently, our relative decline in living standards will grow exponentially because Canada’s poor performance will compound  over time.

How do we change it?

To break out of this rut and prevent this further decline in Canada’s living standards relative to our peers, policymakers must enact comprehensive and bold policy changes to encourage business investment and innovation, promote worker education and training, and achieve better immigration outcomes. More is not always better.

As a starting point, governments should improve the climate for business investment and for investment in education and training by streamlining regulation and major project approvals and reducing current and expected future tax burdens on businesses and workers.

The levels of government debt and debt interest costs are approaching thresholds of unsustainability not seen since the 1990s. Governments, including the federal government, must exercise spending restraint to put their finances on a more sustainable path. This would mitigate the “crowding out” effects of government spending and debt in private markets, and promote private investment. In addition, policies that liberalise intra-provincial and international trade and foster more competition, especially in key industries (e.g. transportation, communication and finance) would help boost investment, productivity and living standards.

Because GDP per person is so closely connected to incomes and living standards, Canada’s decline relative to our peer countries on this key metric should concern all Canadians. Given our projected continued poor performance, our country needs a major series of policy reforms to avoid further declines in living standards.

Much like the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by al Qaeda in the US—9/11 to many of us—the 10/7 terrorist attack in Israel by Hamas changed everything. In both cases, the localised events were catastrophic, killing over a thousand innocent civilians. In both cases, the events sent shockwaves reverberating around the world.

Following 10/7, however, Jews in most Western cities weren’t as shocked by the terrorism itself, as they were by the rapid explosion of antisemitism in its newest guise of anti-Zionism. Perhaps even more shocking was the tepid response by decision-makers, both public and private, who enabled its expansion through their acts of omission.

Before 10/7, antisemitism was, by far, the highest per capita form of recorded hatred in Toronto and Canada. Since 10/7, there has been a massive spike in antisemitic violence.

A crisis in the Middle East comes to Canada

Well before 10/7, we and other Jewish parents at Rawlinson Community School, a Toronto District School Board elementary school in Midtown Toronto, noticed a glaring double standard. While the TDSB addressed many forms of hate, such as anti-Black racism or gender-related discrimination, it was entirely silent about the rapidly rising antisemitism. To foster awareness of the problem, the school’s parent council secured a TDSB innovation grant to hold two antisemitism workshops for our school’s parents. These optional online workshops were to be presented by the TDSB partner organization Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Education (FSWC). They were to be balanced, respectful, and incorporating values of diversity and inclusion.

When the first session was announced to the community, a small but loud group of parents vehemently opposed the sessions and began a relentless campaign to cancel the workshops with letters, phone calls and meetings with the principal, parent council chairs, superintendent and our school board trustee. They claimed that while they do not oppose antisemitism education, they were appalled that a “staunchly Zionist organization would be welcomed in our  school. They alleged that FSWC “repeatedly conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism.” Meanwhile FSWC actually took great care to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from speech or writings that demonize, delegitimize or apply double standards to Israel. In an attempt to further delegitimize FSWC, they pointed to their website, which they pointed out states, “Fighting Antisemitism: Standing with Israel” and shows “an Israeli flag clearly displayed” on a young girl.

The oppositional parents also took the liberty to share their deep knowledge of the Middle East conflict by defining anti-Zionism for our Jewish community: “Anti-Zionism is the rejection of colonialist, racist apartheid political sentiment rooted in legitimation of occupation of Palestinian land, which anybody with a lay understanding of anti-racism, anti-oppression and human rights cannot deny.” It was interesting as Jews to be educated by non-Jews as to what hatred towards us actually was. Any other group would be condemned by the TDSB for attempting to define another group’s understanding and definition of racism against themselves.

These parents relied on many specious claims about FSWC: The organization, they said, demonizes Palestinians and their supporters. It applauds Israel’s military actions and advocates for the cutting off of aid to starving families and children. And, of course, it supports genocide. No matter that Joan Donoghue, former president of the International Court of Justice clarified that the court did not rule that Israel was commiting genocide in Gaza. Rather, it ruled that Palestinians had a “plausible right” to be protected from genocide, and that South Africa had the right to present its claim to the court. We believe that all people should be protected from genocide and political violence, and that all civilian casualties of war and terrorism are tragic. But the ICJ rulings are a far cry from the common accusation that Israel is directly and intentionally committing genocide and we must remember that the proximal cause of both Israeli and Gazan suffering in this conflict is Hamas.

What these parents are really trying to say is that the problem with FSWC is that it’s Zionist. It stands for the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland of Israel. What they won’t plainly say is that they oppose this right of the Jewish people, and they oppose Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. This is anti-Zionism.