with an unpopular federal tax have been so toxic that it is only now, twenty years after the original GST reform, that the logjam is really breaking and Ontario and British Columbia have agreed to sign on, leaving Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and PEI all clearly mulling how to make the move politically palatable to their own voters.
In summary, by the early 1990s, we were halfway through the Redemptive Decade and several key elements of Laurier’s plan—the plan that would trigger the Canadian century—were in place. Reciprocity in trade with the Americans had finally been achieved within the context of a world where tariffs and other barriers to trade were falling. The free trade that Laurier believed in so passionately was increasingly carrying the day. Canada was engaging America directly and courageously, as Laurier had in his time, and seeking to put some restriction on Washington’s poorly mastered urges to punish people who are good at selling to Americans, something Canadians are very, very good at.
Putting the tax structure on a sound footing was well under way, but while some modest progress was made on tax rates, the total tax load and tax structure remained uncompetitive with the tax regime in the US. That in turn was driven by the fact that the Canadian state remained bloated compared to the limited government that Laurier thought would unleash the creativity and entrepreneurialism of Canadians. Politicians were unwilling to impose on Canadian taxpayers and voters the kind of taxes necessary to pay the full cost of the services governments were providing, so to the heavy tax load had to be added the burgeoning debt. And against Laurier’s firm advice, Canada had opened the taps on social welfare spending, drawing large numbers of people into dependence on the state and unable to contribute their energy and intelligence to the Canadian economy. America was also headed in a similar direction, but its progress was much slower than Canada’s. The inevitable arithmetic was that Canada, relatively speaking, was losing ground all the time vis-à-vis the United States, whereas Laurier’s advice to us had been always to keep ahead of the behemoth if we wanted to prosper. Free trade and tax reform were welcome reversions to the Laurier advice, but on most other fronts, Sir Wilfrid was still spinning at high speed in his grave.
The next chapters explain how we completed the Redemptive Decade, brought peace to Laurier’s ghost, and reversed course so remarkably that the Canadian century Laurier believed was rightfully ours is visible on the horizon—and only a hundred years later than Sir Wilfrid predicted.
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