Canada in better shape 40 years ago than today
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the day that Pierre Elliott Trudeau took his famous “walk in the snow” and decided to resign as prime minister after 16 years in power.
The elder Trudeau left his premiership under remarkably similar circumstances to those now faced by his son. Pierre faced levels of public revulsion that were virtually unprecedented. Even the pro-trudeau columnist Tami Nolan greeted his 1984 departure with the prediction that he “would be remembered for all time as the most reviled personally.”
Canada in 1984 had a debt load, an international reputation and a military that were in measurably worse shape than when Trudeau started. Most notably, he faced a revitalized Conservative opposition that would swiftly hand his Liberals one of their most humiliating defeats.
But for all the messes left behind by 16 years of Pierre Trudeau, Canada in 1984 lacked many of the most potent national crises that now define his son’s third term. Below, a quick guide to how Canada in the wake of its first Trudeau was arguably in better shape than today.
Houses were actually quite affordable
This is probably the most immediate disparity between modern-day Canada and the Canada of 40 years ago. When Pierre Trudeau left office, it was pretty easy for Canadians to afford a respectable house, even if they only earned a single middle-class income. In mid-1984, the average price of a Canadian home was an inflation-adjusted $220,000 — about one third of the current average.
Internal government reports at the time claimed that Canadians were “among the best housed people in the world” — and they had the figures to prove it.
What’s more, this was all due in large part to Liberal policy. The government of Pierre Trudeau had pursued an extremely aggressive housing strategy on all fronts: A record-breaking increase in subsidized affordable housing, along with a barrage of incentives and tax credits to spur private-sector homebuilding.
At the peak of the boom, in 1974, Canada built 257,243 new homes. It’s a rate of homebuilding that has never been surpassed, even as the overall Canadian population has nearly doubled. These days, even sober-minded economists are saying that Canadian immigration policy has lost all touch with reality.
“In no version of reality can housing supply respond to an almost overnight tripling in the run-rate of new bodies,” BMO economist Robert Kavcic wrote in one recent report. “Immigration is excessive. Full stop,” wrote an economist for Scotiabank.
The reason is an absolutely unprecedented surge not only in conventional immigrants, but in refugee claimants, foreign students and temporary foreign workers. Canada is currently one of the top five fastest-growing countries on earth; and all of its competitors in that regard are extremely high birthrate countries located in the developing world.
Pierre Trudeau, by contrast, slowed immigration to a trickle throughout his tenure. The same prime minister who popularized Canadian usage of the term “multiculturalism” was also extremely willing to slash immigration targets and even refugee quotas in response to economic concerns.
The military was weakened, but not in utter crisis
Both Trudeaus treated the Canadian Armed Forces as an afterthought (as have most Canadian prime ministers of the last 40 years). But the military of 1984 wasn’t nearly as shambolic as today mostly because it was still coming down from a mid-century high.
Pierre started out in 1968 with a Canadian military that was at the absolute apex of its Cold War strength; multiple European bases, domestically manufactured fighter jets, deployments in Cyprus and the Middle East, an aircraft carrier, 100,000 personnel, even nuclear weapons (although those were controlled by the U.S.).
When Pierre left, the military was smaller and received a much slimmer share of the federal budget, but Canada was still spending two per cent of GDP on defence — a benchmark it isn’t even close to meeting today.
Justin Trudeau, by contrast, inherited a military that was already underfunded, understaffed and beset by procurement issues. Nine years later, all of those have gotten so much worse that the Canadian Armed Forces is basically running on safe mode.
The scandals and corruption weren’t quite as brazen
The defining scandal of the 1984 general election was that in Pierre Trudeau’s final days, he had approved roughly 200 patronage appointments to Liberal Party stalwarts — including making cabinet minister Bryce Mackasey the ambassador to Portugal.
None of the appointments were illegal; they just seemed skeezy, particularly when Trudeau’s successor John Turner refused to reverse them. “You had an option, sir,” Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Mulroney would memorably tell Turner during the 1984 leaders’ debate.
Nowadays, the Arrivecan scandal alone threatens to dwarf the relative political malfeasance of making 200 patronage appointments. While the details are still coming out, it could well involve tens of millions in misallocated federal monies. Add to that a series of scandals involving alleged political interference in the justice system (the SNC Lavalin scandal, the Brenda Lucki affair) as well as no shortage of patronage appointments.
Just last year, Ottawa spent weeks being wracked by controversy that the Liberals’ special rapporteur for foreign interference was David Johnston, a former governor general who literally used to ski with the Trudeau family.
Immigration was actually lower than usual (instead of higher than ever)
Debt, however, was arguably higher under Pierre Trudeau
Both Trudeaus stand out for their reckless disregard for fiscal responsibility. In just nine years, Justin Trudeau has effectively doubled the federal debt, with COVID spending representing a significant chunk of that.
But the elder Trudeau still managed to run up the national credit card at levels that remain jaw-dropping.
The federal debt stood at an inflation-adjusted $170 billion when Pierre took office in 1968. By the last full year of his tenure, it had grown to an inflation-adjusted $381 billion — an increase of 220 per cent.
By the final years of his premiership, Trudeau was running up deficits that were as high as eight per cent of GDP. In Trudeau’s last federal budget, the deficit was an inflation-adjusted $79 billion — way higher than the $40 billion Ottawa is forecasting for this year.
And Pierre Trudeau managed to accumulate these kinds of deficits while overseeing a country of only 25 million — and with way lower built-in entitlement costs, such as health care.