While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Kevin Lynch.
Around the world, borrowing costs are rising, growth is only middling, economic risks are tilted to the downside and, after six years of global shocks, most countries’ fiscal buffers are depleted. The IMF’s recent conclusion from all this is that governments need to rein in their spending and borrowing. This week’s federal budget should not take the view that Canada...
Given recent developments in our bilateral relationship with the United States under its current president, it is now clear that our disagreement over the unprecedented use of tariffs to coerce acquiescence to otherwise unacceptable economic change is about much more than trade. It is about sovereignty. Team Trump misread Canadians and overreached. Prime Minister Mark Carney rightly walked away from...
In a world riven with strife, with democracy and dignity under daily assault in the United States by its president, and with global hegemons rejecting the sovereignty of nations, Canadians should take careful stock of what we have and who we are. Canada is blessed with vast geography, abundant natural resources and an educated and diverse population. We have the...
The 2026 edition of Davos that begins Monday will be notable for the 11th-hour exit of its founder, Klaus Schwab, and the subsequent, dominance-marking presence of President Donald Trump and the largest U.S. delegation to ever attend the World Economic Forum. The Swiss must be praying that Trump doesn’t decide that its luxury goods industries, exclusive resorts and prime geographical...
That landmark Economist cover of 22 years ago – “Canada’s New Spirit” – is, sadly, a distant memory. Canada today is seriously underperforming its enormous potential, and public confidence in the future is waning. We are beset with anemic productivity growth, weak economic performance, declines in per-capita incomes, persistent affordability problems, structural fiscal deficits and a doubling of our national...
U.S. President Donald Trump has denigrated our sovereignty and threatened our livelihoods through a pernicious and unjustifiable trade war. Against this backdrop, we need to push back and build up the Canadian economy by urgently tackling our weak productivity and excessive reliance on the U.S. market.
The global economy is facing major instability, especially due to the Trump administration’s trade policies, which have permanently disrupted free trade with the U.S. and the global trading system. Canada must act quickly with bold policy changes to stay competitive and find new export markets.
With Mark Carney now prime minister, we are, perhaps, days from him heading back to Rideau Hall to trigger the federal election. What the election should boil down to, paraphrasing Democratic strategist James Carville, is: “It’s Trump and the economy, stupid.” In this reality, the candidates must be laser-focused on serious issues with clear policy prescriptions, not campaign slogans and...
With his tariffs now a reality, U.S. President Donald Trump is weaponizing uncertainty to coerce businesses to move their operations to the United States. While we are now subject to 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs (10 per cent on energy), it’s unlikely all his tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports will remain in place. The cost to Americans, both producers...
Canadians don’t get U.S. President Donald Trump and why, though he’s agreed to a temporary reprieve, he’s still threatening to impose tariffs on us. We think he doesn’t understand how important we are to the U.S. We cite statistics like Canada is the largest export market for U.S. goods, the top export market for 34 states and accounts for the...
Americans voted for Trump with full knowledge of who he was and what he intended to do. The impacts of that U.S. electoral decision will be felt around the globe. In the immediate ramp up to his inauguration, the Trump roller-coaster was off and roaring: threats of punitive tariffs on America’s two NAFTA partners, threats to take-back the Panama Canal...
Canadian political leaders were caught flat-footed by President-elect Donald Trump’s warning that he would impose punitive tariffs on Canada and Mexico on day one of his presidency, citing our porous borders, which, he complains, have facilitated the movement of illegal immigrants and drugs into the United States. With his 25% tariff salvo, Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t...
Federal law says there has to be an election by Oct. 20 of next year. The current level of rancour in the House of Commons suggests it may come sooner rather than later. We believe, echoing Democratic strategist James Carville, that whenever it does happen it needs to be “about the economy, stupid.” Three issues should top the list: sound...
In a recent op ed in The Globe and Mail, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist wrote about “the disbelief among far too many in Canada that rising antisemitism is real, alongside the disbelief by many within the Jewish community that antisemitism has returned in a manner unseen since the Holocaust.” He asked Canadians to “simply believe us”. In...
The reality today is an uncomfortable mix of geopolitical turmoil, rising nationalism and rampant populism. A useful lens to try and make sense of it is “economic nationalism” – an old problem, recently re-framed on both the left and the right for a 21st-century economic reality. While the economy has influenced political trajectories and electoral outcomes since long before James...
“Without a course correction, we are indeed heading for ‘Tepid Twenties’ – a sluggish and disappointing decade.” While International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was speaking to the global community in her “curtain raiser” remarks in advance of the IMF/World Bank Spring 2024 meetings, her comments certainly apply to Canada’s diminished prospects, particularly for growth in real GDP per...
Canada faces significant challenges including weak per capita income growth, soaring government spending, and strained international relations, leading to diminishing public trust. There is an urgent need for a more efficient and accountable government to address these issues and navigate the complexities of the modern world.
A year ago, we wrote in these pages that “The ‘new normal’ for Canada is slow economic growth.” We wish we could say what a difference a year makes, but we can’t. Growth seems stubbornly mired well below two per cent, barely half of what we averaged over the last half-century. Our weak productivity is translating into weak GDP growth...
A new strain of economic nationalism is reshaping policies in the world’s two largest economies – the U.S. and China – and risks infecting the rest of us. This bout of nationalism coincides with profound structural changes in the global economy, a looming energy transition and intense strategic competition between America and China, making its future path highly uncertain and...
There are fewer than 300 days to the American presidential election, and Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden in almost every major poll. The world needs to start thinking seriously about the implications of a second Trump presidency. Beyond the domestic disruption as he erodes American democratic norms, undermines institutions, and threatens to abuse the rule of law, a man...