The Weekly Wrap: We are still living in Justin Trudeau’s economy

Long live the Common Sense Revolution

It’s hard to believe that this weekend marks the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Ontario election and the launch of the Common Sense Revolution. For those of us who came of age politically during that time, it remains a pivotal moment—not only in the province’s history but in the broader intellectual arc of Canadian conservatism and our own intellectual and political evolution.

My political formation began in a Thunder Bay high school classroom where teachers regularly litigated the Harris government’s policy agenda. Even as a teenager, the arguments seemed emotional, self-interested, and ultimately unpersuasive. Those classroom debates eventually led me to conservatism in general and support for the Harris government in particular.

With the benefit of hindsight, the government’s reformist zeal is even more impressive. The Common Sense Revolution remains among the most ambitious and successful centre-right reform projects anywhere in the Anglo-American world over the past several decades. It tackled big problems—a stagnant economy, unsustainable government spending, widespread welfare dependency—and did so with a clarity and confidence that has largely disappeared from our politics.

It wasn’t just about tax cuts. It was a comprehensive agenda: reining in spending, reforming welfare, modernizing labour laws, reshaping municipal governance, and restoring Ontario’s competitiveness. It wasn’t perfect, but it was serious. And it worked. Ontario’s economy recovered. Confidence returned. Dependency declined. Government re-focused on the basics.

The deeper legacy of the Harris era is what it revealed about conservative politics: when conservatives are serious, disciplined, and grounded in ideas, they can win. They can overcome institutional inertia and political resistance. They can govern with principle and reform with purpose.

It also casts today’s political circumstances in a harsher light. The current Ontario government has enjoyed a sizable majority, a strong political hand, and no shortage of pressing challenges and yet it has little to show in terms of enduring structural reform. The contrast with the Harris era is stark: where one government saw its power as a mandate for change, the other has too often treated it as permission for drift.

Thirty years later, that’s the real lesson of the Common Sense Revolution. Not just that it changed Ontario, but that it proved change is possible.

Thank you, Russ

In 2012, I moved from Ottawa to Vancouver to work on economic and fiscal policy at the Fraser Institute. Although my tenure at the institute was short, it had a huge impact on me professionally.

I arrived with some basic economics training, sure. But I didn’t yet see the world the way economists do—with an instinct for incentives, trade-offs, and unintended consequences. Sitting around the lunch table was like the equivalent of doing a graduate degree in economics.

One thing that I discovered upon my arrival was that listening to Russ Roberts’ podcast, EconTalk, was an unspoken expectation of employment. Everyone on the institute’s research staff listened to new episodes on their Monday morning commute to the office. Econ Talk’s ideas and conversations permeated the office. It wasn’t just a podcast—it was part of the intellectual culture.

By that point, the podcast was already roughly six years into its regular weekly schedule. Roberts’ thoughtfulness and rigour were a big part of its appeal. But so was the quality of its guests and, of course, the conversations themselves.

Those episodes were mostly focused on economics. They tended to reflect Roberts’s own orthodox views on the role of incentives, the risks of Public Choice dynamics, and so on. Guests included Tyler Cowen, Ed Glaeser, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

When I eventually left the Fraser Institute in 2014, I was a better researcher and thinker. My weekly exposure to economics through EconTalk was a big part of my intellectual evolution.

It was about that time that Roberts himself was starting to evolve. His 2014 book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, may have been about the father of modern economics, but it was mostly focused on his moral philosophy, including Smith’s understanding of why people are good and aspire to virtue.

The book unofficially kicked off a shift in EconTalk away from hardcore economics to much bigger questions about morality, human flourishing, and the good life. Roberts has since become a curator of conversations that touched on everything from human nature to love and suffering, and even one’s own morality. Just as he helped me become a better economic thinker, he’s helped me to become a better person.

A couple of years ago, I was honoured to host him on the Hub Dialogues podcast. I took the opportunity to tell him how much he and his work have meant to me.

This week marked the 1,000th episode of EconTalk. It’s a huge accomplishment. Not only has Roberts achieved extraordinary longevity (he hasn’t missed a weekly episode in almost two decades), but the characteristics that define the podcast—including Roberts’ own curiosity and decency—have endured.

What makes EconTalk so special is that it doesn’t feel like you’re merely listening to Roberts’ conversations. After more than a decade, it feels like I’m alongside him on an intellectual and moral journey.

The internet gets a bad rap sometimes because it’s not as good as face-to-face relationships. That’s of course true, but we shouldn’t overstate it either. My introduction to EconTalk all those years ago has become a big part of my life. Thank you, Russ.