OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — After again raising interest rates in response to high inflation spurred by massive federal government spending, the head of the Bank of Canada painted a grim picture for 2023, warning Canadians the coming economic turmoil will not “feel good.”
After hiking interest rates for the eighth time in a row on Wednesday, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told reporters that the economy is “slowing” and will continue “to slow,” warning that growth rates for the rest of the year will be “pretty close to zero.”
Elaborating, Macklem said that nation’s economy has effectively “stalled,” and that this lack of growth “is not going to feel good” for already struggling Canadians.
Decades-high inflation over the past 18 months has led the Bank of Canada to hike interest rates to the highest level since 1991 – the current rate is now 4.5 percent.
While most economists agree that raising interest rates is an effective method of combating inflation, the process also increases the financial burden of the population, most notably among homeowners with mortgages.
While inflation has hit on a global scale, in Canada, the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doled out large amounts of borrowed money to fund both its COVID programs and ideologically driven programs, which have increased Canada’s debt to over $1 trillion.
In fact, the nation’s debt level has nearly doubled to approximately $1.2 trillion in the span of less than two years, from around $685 billion in 2019.
Critics have long characterized the Trudeau government’s spending as “reckless,” and have blamed it for the current inflationary crisis.
The G20 comprises the most powerful nations in the world - the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the E.U., Australia, India, China, Russia and Brazil among others - and they are discussing climate policies that are already affecting billions of people around the world.
Most of these countries want the world to run on solar and wind power, forcing an end to the use of gas, oil and nuclear power, as well as crushing beef farmers because of supposed methane emissions.
But the harsh impact of such policies is already being felt, with energy blackouts and soaring inflation hammering people around the world, making it beyond time for all of us to speak out.
SIGN: Tell G20 leaders that their radical climate policies are making basic foods, fuel, heating and electricity increasingly unaffordable for normal citizens.
As western leaders turn off the oil spigots and impose draconian restrictions on farmers, we've all experienced the pain of increased prices, not least at the pump and the grocery store.
This inflation was entirely avoidable if only our politicians prioritized food and energy security over climate theories, but instead they have succumbed to radical environmentalists whose agenda would cripple the livelihoods and living standards of much of the globe.
Communities all around you are feeling the weight of crushing price hikes, which will soon reach your own food isles and gas pumps if it hasn't already.
The effects of inflation are being felt in the developing world most, as fuel and food prices sky rocket, making even worse poverty an inevitabilty for hundreds of millions of people.
Reality hits home.
The harshest effects of energy shortages were felt by many in the west last winter, when our leaders' decisions to cut oil supplies and reject Russian natural gas:
- forced heating, fuel and electricity prices to sky rocket
- continued to make food more expensive
- risked a global depression as inflation spiraled out of control
- prompted blackouts in certain areas
- made civil unrest a real possibility
States like California and countries like England were warning citizens that they faced severe electricity and gas shortages.
Now is the time to speak out and be part of a movement that can halt this runaway train of climate alarmism.
SIGN the petition calling on international leaders to abandon their reckless energy agenda and return the world to economic stability.
The entire climate change industry is based on models that have been consistently inaccurate for decades, with Al Gore among the most infamous prophets of doom to be proven wrong.
In 2009 Gore told the COP15 climate change conference in Copenhagen that the North Pole would be ice-free by 2014, a claim that remains wildly off the mark.
Arctic sea ice has increased since 2012 and is now close to the average for 1991-2000 – another inconvenient fact for climate change alarmists, alongside thriving polar bears and more coral on the Great Barrier Reef. https://t.co/3m7jcaj1hV
— Toby Young (@toadmeister) September 1, 2022
Al Gore is not alone in getting things wrong however, as this brief timeline of scaremongering headlines proves:
The world needs to wake-up to what's really happening: our lives are being upended on the basis of climate theories and models that have been consistently wrong for decades.
It's time to stop the scaremongering and push back against the radical agenda of international elites.
SIGN & SHARE: Tell G20 leaders that their radical climate policies are making basic foods, fuel, heating and electricity increasingly unaffordable for normal citizens.
Thank you.
Conservative leader calls for Bank of Canada head to be fired
As for rising interest rates, Macklem said that they are “working,” and hinted further rate increases might be paused.
However, Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre blasted rising interest rates for the impact it is having on Canadian, likening it to a “sucker punch” to those who trusted the Trudeau government when it “promised rates would stay low for long.”
Poilievre has called for Macklem to be fired in the past, and on Wednesday said he “of course” still holds this view.
Beyond eye-watering inflation and a potential recession, under Trudeau taxes have gone up as well, further burdening the average consumer.
Food inflation in particular is so bad that the Department of Social Development warned it might increase the nation’s poverty rate significantly.
Last November, Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux warned that Canadian families “are in their darkest hours,” and just recently, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation blasted Trudeau’s Liberals for implementing no less than five tax hikes in 2023, a year where citizens are already struggling to make ends meet.