Canada has always been ready

We have always been ready.

Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech to the world’s elites this week, saying what he thinks they wanted to hear: Canada is ready. Ready to invest. Ready to build. Ready to lead.

However, now, we know better than to judge Carney by yet another speech.
Ranchers, farmers, tradespeople, and small business owners in Foothills live in the real world. In our world, results matter more than applause in Davos.

You cannot stand on an international stage and say Canada is open for business if the front door is locked at home. You cannot tell global investors we have the resources they need while our own projects spend decades trapped in endless assessments and blocked by anti-development Liberal legislation like Bill C-69 and the shipping ban. He cannot keep promising action when year after year the same Liberal government delivers platitudes and delays.

Mark Carney spoke about Canada’s potential. We already know our potential. We see it every day in our energy sector, our agriculture industry, our critical minerals, and the people who are willing to work hard. The problem has never been what Canada has to offer. The problem has been everything the Liberals in Ottawa put in the way.

For our communities, this is not theoretical. When a permit drags on for years, that is a family business which cannot expand. When rules change halfway through a project, that is money pulled out of a community. When decisions are made by people who have never left their Ottawa tower to set foot on a job site or a farm, it is rural Canada paying the price.

To Carney and his WEF buddies, trust me Canada wants to compete. I talk to people on the ground every day. What they want is a fair and fighting chance. That means faster approvals, predictable rules, taking a chain saw to red tape and suffocating regulations, abandoning the farcical net zero ideology and it means having a government that sees builders and producers as partners, not problems to regulate. It means trusting Canadians who get up early, work hard, take risks, and create value.

We do not need Ottawa to sell us to the world. We need Ottawa to stop tying our hands behind our backs.

If the Prime Minister is serious about making Canada a place where things get done, the work does not start in Switzerland. It starts by removing the ideological Liberal barriers right here at home.

We have always been ready. Now it is time for this Liberal government to prove it can do more than talk.