October 8, 2025 • 50 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, join Brian for a powerful and eye-opening conversation with Paul Smetanin, President and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis. Paul introduces the concept of “Ponzinomics” — his term for how Canada has treated infrastructure spending as a political prop rather than a long-term economic necessity. He explains how decades of under-planning and short-term announcement politics have left our country worse off than Mexico when it comes to infrastructure certainty, costing us $600 billion in lost economic potential.
Together they explore why housing starts are at a 30-year low and what this means for young Canadians, how infrastructure delays can erase up to $144 billion in potential benefits, and why housing in Ontario is uniquely taxed at 36% of its value. They even touch on what systemic changes from a national infrastructure plan to multi-year funding and transparent ledgers could turn things around. Don’t miss this candid discussion on why Canada’s infrastructure and housing crisis is a matter of intergenerational fairness and how we can start fixing it.
Together they explore why housing starts are at a 30-year low and what this means for young Canadians, how infrastructure delays can erase up to $144 billion in potential benefits, and why housing in Ontario is uniquely taxed at 36% of its value. They even touch on what systemic changes from a national infrastructure plan to multi-year funding and transparent ledgers could turn things around. Don’t miss this candid discussion on why Canada’s infrastructure and housing crisis is a matter of intergenerational fairness and how we can start fixing it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio War.
I've got a really interesting conversation tonight and a really
interesting guest. Paul met Tanin is my guest tonight. He
is the president CEO of the Canadian Center for Economic
Analysis CANSA, which is home to North America's largest socioeconomic
simulation platform. They tracked four thousand topics at once for
(00:41):
government and market analysis. And he's here to explain why
candidate keeps announcing infrastructure can't see what it spends and
is still living the crisis he warned us about fifteen
years ago. That sounds like an interesting intro.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
He's going to.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Talk as well about a couple of other things that
I think are really quin quite of.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
He's going to talk about Ponzi policy.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Is that the name ponzonomics panzinomics fascinating, And we're going
to talk about you know, what he predicted and why
we're stuck interrupt So Paul, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Thank you Ryan. It's nice to have nice to be
on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
So you run and lead a large simulation platform. What
is a large simulation platform, sir?
Speaker 5 (01:28):
So, yeah, we started off twenty five years ago in
the country consulting group in economic policy, demographics, healthcare and
things of that nature. So you know, in order to
understand what tomorrow looks like and what do we have
to do today to change it, we have these very
(01:48):
large mathematical simulation platforms which help us understand what we
should expect and how we might be able to change it. So, yes,
we're proudly the largest socio nomics simulation platform in North America.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And you say that for fifteen years you've argued that
Canada treats infrastructurally a political prop instead of the economy's
operating system. Really a problem is, yes.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
It's Look, it's we started looking at these issues back
in two thousand and eight nine, and we've performed work
in twenty ten which essentially predicted what's happening today. You know,
we've then speaking to government policymakers. But you know the
problem is infrastructure in this country is so politicized. We
(02:39):
can talk more about what that means, but we don't
treat infrastructure seriously. And the housing crisis that we have
right now is actually a direct symptom of the fact
that we don't treat infrastructure seriously in this country.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
How do we not treat it seriously?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
We have this major Project's office, we have you know,
we were started by an infrastruct sure a plan to
build the railway across the country. We've got LRTs being
built in Toronto. We've got subway expansions being built in Toronto.
How do we not treat it seriously?
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Yeah? When I say treated seriously, I'm talking more at
the federal government and provincial government levels. Infrastructure is like
it's a political football, it's an announcement theater. Essentially, infrastructure
treating is treated as a political, politically aligned announcements. They're
(03:31):
not necessarily fundamental infrastructure requirements that we need. It's you know,
for example, when we look at the uncertainty around infrastructure
funding in this country, we're actually two times worst in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Two times worse than Mexico.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Two times worst of Mexico, and on average we're almost
four times worse than our peers in Australia or the UK.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Hold it, hold it in what ending in productivity? In
time delays.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
What how are we worse?
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Yes, spanding for sure, But it's the announcement cycle that
it's so politicized that you get an announcement and then
a couple of years later that announcement goes away and
they're onto something else, and then onto something else and
then on to something else. Just visualized for a second,
(04:25):
that is kind of like a b roller coaster. Because
there's no national plan, there's no certainty of where we're
headed as a country. From an infrastructure point of view,
and yes, municipalities and you know here in Ontario they
are delivering transit, they are doing some good infrastructure, but
infrastructures are a very large conversation water and wastewater. It's
(04:50):
about coordination between different levels of government and that's not happening.
And our productivity over the last thirty years is suffered
because of Ultimately, we don't have long term plan in
this country, particularly when it comes around infrastructure. And infrastructure
is important because it's the very surface that we live,
(05:10):
work and play on. Without it, we can't grow.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
The implication of what you're talking about is pretty profound,
and I'm quoting from what your organization sent me in
twenty ten, you warned that we drift toward one percent
real growth to twenty sixty if we stuck with stop start,
politicized spending a week evaluation. By twenty twenty one, the
OECD was projecting that we would have the slowest per
(05:33):
capita growth in the OECD, exactly the rest that you flagged.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
So we're we're not in good shape.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Correct, No, we're not in good shape. And the problem
with infrastructure it takes a fifteen year view in order
to be able to get it right. And you know,
when we're talking housing crisis, or we're talking congestion, or
we're talking higher taxes, these are all ultimately symptoms of
the fact that we haven't planned our communities and infrastructure spend,
(06:05):
and we have not delivered that to the private industry
so that they could spend the next ten to fifteen
years putting their capital at risk and training people for
the infrastructure that is planned to be built. We're one
of the few OECD countries that does not have a
national plan, and therefore we're suffering the issues of the
(06:28):
fact that we're not coordinated and infrastructure unfortunately has been
used as political football.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And then you've described it. I love this word and
I need to explain it better. If you could, you
say that that's led to a situation where we have ponzonomics,
ponzionomics alac Canadian style, where we build a national infrastructure
strategy with a public ledger and pipeline and tie money
to males stones choose. What we don't do is build
(06:56):
a national infrastructure strategy with a public ledger and pipeline,
tame money to Marster's choose wisely, fund predictably, maintain relentlessly,
and measure transparently. So obviously you must think that today
we don't fund predictively, we don't maintain relentlessly, and we
don't measure transparently.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
And that's led to something you call panzinomics.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yeah, ponsonomics is it's slightly independent to the conversation about
infrastructure that we're having, But ponzonomics is a it's something
that we here at the Cansea, the Canadian Center for Economics,
you know, we're shocked with, particularly in the last decade.
And if you have a moment, I'll briefly explain what
(07:37):
ponzonomics is. Please please, Okay, So just imagine that you're
paying a work or a thousand dollars to dig a
hole in the ground and you pay another worker to
fill that hole exactly back to its original state. Now,
nothing's happened right now. If industry did that activity, then
(07:58):
industry would lose two thousand dollars. It paid one thousand
dollars to dig a hole, one thousand dollars to fill
it back in, and there's zero productivity according to economic accounting. However,
if government had paid for that, it's added two thousand
dollars to GDP productivities one thousand dollars per hour. And
politicians will say, hey, stronger, game change. And then it
(08:21):
gets worse because they will try and book that activity
as capital investments, as if it looks like it's infrastructure
that it's not. And it's even worse when governments, and
particularly in the last ten to fifteen years, it's even
worse when they borrow against it because they can keep
then doing it again and again and again, and they're
(08:43):
pushing the problem to the next generation without actually having
anything to show for it. So that's ponzonomics. It's basically
keeping people busy but not actually productively adding to the
ability of the system to SUCA in itself and to
actually grow prosperity, prosperity.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Sorry, do you think that rather than focus on growth
on prosperity, we've just been trying to keep people busy.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Yeah. Look, it's a sad fact. From my opinion is
we live in a highly politicized country. You hear the
media talking about other countries and everything else, but this
country is highly politicized. We really do lack proper evaluation
and proper business cases. And essentially this country has been
(09:36):
fixated on just basically paying people money and using infrastructure
as social programs as opposed to what they should be
is building the infrastructure and the means for the countries
who actually take risk, innovate, get to work and be
(09:56):
prosperous on its own. And yet every time there's a problem,
people's psy government should do X y Z. And the
problem with ponsonomics is there's nothing to show for all
this money that has been spent.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
There's gonna be a fascinating conversation tonight, everybody, we're gonna
take break and come back. I'm going to ask our
guest Paul what this has cost us, and then we're
going to talk about what the potential solutions are Stay
with us everyone. This is gonna be, I think, a
really interesting conversation to sort of set the policy agenda.
We've got Mark Kearney going to the United States and
talking to Donald Trump about the economy.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
We've got this major.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Project's office, we've got national infrastructure, we've got a housing strategy.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Maybe they should be listening to Paul a little bit
more than they are.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Stay with U.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Minutes, No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on Sagay
ninety six am dot C A.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Wire. We've
got Paul Smetton and with us today. He's the president
and CEO of the Canadian Center for Economic Analysis.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It is a socioeconomics simulation platform.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
They tracked four thousand different topics and he is just
described to us something that he calls ponzonomics. And he
thinks that we're overly political in Canada in regards to
deciding what to do and our policies, and that that's
part of the problem and that it's led to some challenges.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And we're going to run through some of those challenges.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Because you've got a pretty blunt diagnosis in your assessment
here you've talked about we're stuck in announcement theater, we
indulge in these puzzy economics, And you think that we've
therefore invested chronically less in infrastructure than we need to,
that we've got funding that's less than our peers, that
we invest less in productivity, that our housing is a
(11:56):
real challenge, that tax at rates only above our peers.
Tell us all a little bit, if you could a
boat about the impact of this panzinomics, about this lack
of coherent strategy.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Sure, so, fifteen years ago we'd written a report and
essentially we identify that infrastructure should be proper infrastructure. We're
talking water, waste, water, freeways, transit should be sixty percent
higher than what it was, and infrastructure also needs to
(12:30):
be maintained, and that should have been over eighty percent higher,
because we don't maintain infrastructure particularly well in this country.
But ignoring infrastructure and not having a long term plan
does a couple of things. Firstly, it takes away your
ability to become more productive, to do more with the
(12:52):
same amount of resources or do more with less. Secondly,
industry plan to put their private capital at risk because
they don't know what the plan is. It's a roller coaster,
and therefore they don't upskill or invest in upskilling or
skilling the labor force of the future. What does it
(13:15):
cost us over the past fifteen years, the uncertainty and infrastructure,
as I mentioned, it's two times worse in Mexico, uncertainly
being stop start, stop start. You know, there's no coordination
over the last fifteen years. It's cost US six hundred
billion dollars. Right, that's almost forty percent of the current
(13:37):
value of the economy. And the delays that have been occurring.
You could take a two hundred billion dollar investment in
infrastructure and if you delay it, you're actually ripping out
about one hundred and forty four billion of its benefits.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I got to interrupt your apologize Mexico. Did Canadians think
that Max is this?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
You know? This this this example of incredible great governance
that's non politicized and is investing in spectacular infrastructure. How
have you assessed that we are what is it two
times worse than Mexico?
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Yes, so, if you have a look at the accounts
here and what infrastructure announcements have made and where they
go and where they end up and do they get
finished and are they delayed? And then you look at
OECD countries including Mexico, and then you basically see that
we are twice. It's worse when you look at the uncertainty, right,
(14:37):
the variability. It's like, think of the uncertainty is I
say yes on a Monday and I know on a Tuesday, right,
and yeah, we're twice its West Mexico. Right now. Mexico
is investing in infrastructure. It has to. It's growing that
they have a national plan. We don't.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Some people think that the problem is is our approval system.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
That we've got an overly complicated approval system that needs
you know, every indigenous group to agree, every province to agree,
every community to agree, and that that approval and you know,
you know, some people called this bill that was passed
by the prior Trudeau government that don't build new pipelines
anywhere ever forever?
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Bill?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Is it the approval process that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Other people have said, we've got a procurement problem. That's
the issue that we always have to go with the
lowest bid and we segment out the you know, the
contracts into pieces and then the pieces don't add up
together and we have no one sort of overseen.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
And that's what you know.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
The Eglington l r T has been it's the procurement
problem has been used as the as the as the
problem you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It's just a national plan. So what's the problem.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Why do we do infrastructure so poorly relative to to
what we could and should and other people do well.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
When you study other countries like a Stritter or the
they actually have an infrastructure pipeline and ledger for example,
you know in Australia at the UK exactly what's being built,
where it's built, why it's being built, and how it's
actually going to benefit the economy and the wellbeing of
their citizens. We don't have that ledger. The PDO came
(16:22):
out the other day and basically said, oh, the government's
going to spend what one hundred and fifty six billion
dollars on infrastructure, but we're not sure on what because
we don't have the data or the information. Infrastructure and
the issues across this country are complex and there's no
silver bullet. But right now housing is in crisis. It's
(16:44):
a direct symptom of what we're talking about now, and
the fact that in Ontario, housing is taxed twice as
much as anything else in the economy. Is another symptom
of by virtue of the fact that we don't we've
not treated infrastructure properly for the last thirty years.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
How is housing tax twice as much as anything else
in the economy.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Well, it is, and primarily through development charges, sales tax,
and land transfer taxes. So a new home that's produced
in Ontario, has I averaged thirty six percent of that
new home if it's a million dollars, three hundred and
sixty thousand dollars of that million dollars is taxation. In
(17:29):
the rest of the economy, it would be about one
hundred and sixty thousand, one hundred and seventy thousand. Why
are homes being taxed aggressively because people need homes and
you can't avoid the tax. That is a sad predicament
of the situation that we're in that each time there's
an issue, for instance, congestion here in Toronto, we came
(17:53):
out with that report and now they're talking about putting
a building charge on home in Toronto to somehow deal
with congestion. I find it a little offensive that because
we have a breakdown in governance. Right, the go to
in this country is tax, more fees, more charges.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So building starts at an all time low, probably a
thirty year low.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
The condo market, which we knew exactly three years ago
would happen.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
The condo market is in an ace age.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
A single building, single family dwelling unit building is similarly
you know, anemic.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
We supposedly need three point five million homes in the
Greater Toronto area of southern Ontario, and building starts at an
all time goal.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Just on that point, Just on that point, Brian, every
announcement that the politicians made about housing has almost a
new zero probability of occurring. We've done the math. That's
what that simulation platform is about. We do a lot
of work seamate see. But it's ultimately because they're out
of touch with the infrastructure required to put our house
(19:09):
on a street that has electricity and water and wastewater
and everything else. All these grand statements is an example
of the politicization and announcement theater of the country that
we live in.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But Paul, in twenty twenty two, the Ford government came
out with a Housing Affordability Task Force with fifty seven
recommendations of what to do. It's three years later, three
and a bit years later.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
Now, how can thath's happened? It's a great Canadian tradition
to have more meetings, have more recommendations, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. But unfortunately, and I can describe the difference
between so Australia and Canada, but unfortunately in this country
we have so many levels of government. We do have
(19:53):
a visiting system of rules and everything else, which is
fine because I live in this country. I'm a citizen
here cause of the fact that we care about you know,
the person next to us. The problem is, though, that
we aren't all on the same team, and we haven't
been certainly since I've arrived, you know, twenty five years ago,
(20:15):
and something needs to break before the country starts to
understand how deep the issues run. And we're moving towards
that break.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
You you also, I think, really lead to sort of
an intergenerational inecro argument. What you sent me was that
you say that a twenty year old faces a lifetime
productivity bill measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars because
we didn't build when it counted, correct, So because my
(20:48):
generation messed up. My kids are going to be hundreds
of thousands of dollars less well off.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Is that what you're saying correct? Because the infrastructure supports
the ability of a person to get out and work
and to be productive. If the infrastructure is not there,
the person has less opportunity and therefore they earn less
wage in their lifetime and on average, and this is
back to twenty ten again on average, I think I
(21:17):
forget the number, but it's about the day that a
person in this country twenty years old starts their job.
They're almost like given a bill by saying that, you know,
by the time you get to retirement in today's dollars,
you're going to be three hundred thousand dollars poorer because
(21:39):
that's what they're missing out on as the opportunity cost.
And so that metric and statistic we designed that and
wanted to calculate it to make it real to normal
people on the ground. This is costing generations behind us,
and we've got a lot of debt now that they
(22:00):
will pay we won't, but we've got nothing to show
for it. And that leads us back to the politicization
of this country and the fact that big infrastructure projects
are their announcements. They're politically motivated for sure, and they're
also a good way, unfortunately, to transfer money from government
(22:22):
to private interests.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
Paul, you've been talking about this, you say, for more
than fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Is anyone listening?
Speaker 5 (22:29):
People listen? The problem is is that no one's really
responsible because you've just got this fracturing that the FEDS are,
you know, aren't locked into what the provinces are doing
and vice versa, and then you've got the municipalities. I
feel bad for the municipalities because this is all the
(22:50):
problems get pushed down in the municipalities and they don't
have the funding to deliver infrastructure that the FEDS used
to build. And in fact, the FEDS are the biggest
beneficiary from what municipalities do in infrastructuring, yet they won't
show up to fund infrastructure. And that's a problem. And
(23:11):
that's why you've now got a situation where housing is
taxed two times more than the rest of anything else
in the economy because the municipalities have gone down that
path of having to charge development charges, for example, because
(23:32):
the provincial and federal levels of government are not funding them.
Correctly or according to their responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back in two minutes. I'm going to ask our
guest Paul, what's the solution? How do we change things
if people are listening but not responding and not doing
anything about it.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
How come?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Because clearly we've got some major issues here. It he's outlined,
and I think we all sort of feel it. I
think we realize that the housing business is claudyclysmic right now.
We see the delays on the Eglington LRT. We wonder
about why we're not building the pipelines that we should
be building, liquefied natural gas plants, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
But what's the solution and how do we get something done?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Stay? Is everyone back in two minutes talking about panzinomics,
talking about politalization and how we solve it to build
the kind of country we want to build.
Speaker 7 (24:36):
Back into stream us Live at SAGA nine six am
dot CA.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
A welcome back every went to the Brian crimeby Radio.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I've got Paul Smetton and with us today. He's the
president and CEO of the Canadian Center for Economic Analysis.
It's a socioeconomic simulation platform. He tracks four thousand different
topics and he says, we're not working. We got a
big problem in Canada. We've got political fracture, we got pasonomics,
we got political theater, we've got announcement theater. We got
(25:19):
real problems. So, Paul, how do we stop announcement theater?
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Well, it begins measuring things properly and accounting for things.
Because what we've got to do is take hiding places
away from people who do the announcement theater. But there's
no one in the room saying, well, hang on, that's
just announcement theater. I'll give you a good example. Just
prior to the election, the previous Prime minister made an
announcement about a very large infrastructure project that we believe
(25:49):
does not have a business case at all. We've also
estimated that that's going to cost Ontario about fifty billion
dollars over the next twenty years. That announcement on its own,
where that could actually go to water and wastewater and
building out and supporting the very sort of landscape that
(26:09):
we need to build housing.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So how do we what was that announcement that had
do a business case?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I'm not going there but there was a very large
announcement and anyone with an internet connection can look at
what Trudeau announced just prior the election, hy Speed Real
something like that. So moving in terms of how do
we fix this, like we're not evaluating things properly and
(26:38):
governments like that. Politicians like that because it creates a
hiding place, right you don't have someone in the room
that says, hang on, how's this affecting the who, the what,
the when, the we're wearing the why? None of that
has occurred. And I won't get too technical, but this
country is living off what's called the input output models
that can't tell the difference of if you're spending money
(26:59):
on ice cream where you're spending money on infrastructure. People
who don't want to alight shone on what's going on,
they prefer input out.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So our new prem Minister Mark Courney has talked about
separating note the budget into operating expenses versus capital expenses,
which is what companies do. They'll account for capital, you know, separately.
Is that a positive move? You've argued for your build plan?
So is a five year build plan comparable to what Corney's.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Talking Let's get back to the operating versus capital and splitting.
That scares me because it's another accounting game, just like
plans and once splitting operating and capital is not about
addressing issue. It's about actually changing the optics of a
very bad situation. And what gets booked at capital was
(27:52):
the example I gave you previously. Dig a hole, fill
it back in, call it capital. That's great, right, but
it's not. We don't have measurement systems, we don't have
a ledger, or we don't treat infrastructure as that's the
operating system of the country. I understand why the current
Prime Minister wants to go in the direction of operating
(28:13):
versus capital because it's going to make it a lot
easier to change the optics, right, because all we see
right now is a lot of debt and nothing really
on the ground has happened. Where did the money go? So,
like I said earlier this year, the announcement, it doesn't
(28:34):
have a business case. And yet you know we're going
to be getting into something that's seventy to one hundred
billion dollars that has a one in five hundred chance
of actually achieving what you know the politicians are telling us.
And that's not our statistic that's from Oxford University on
all those kinds of projects around the world. So, you know,
(28:55):
if we want to lean in and ask the question
of what's it going to take to get things fixed?
You know, my earlier point was I don't think there's
too many actors in the system that are benefiting or
somehow getting what they need at the hest of productivity
and the quality of life of Canadians. And therefore nature
(29:18):
tells us the only way that changes is when something
breaks existentially, right. I can explain what that is through
an analogy if you like, Please, something breaks. So healthcare
system in this country. Canadians are very proud of their
healthcare system until they're in it, and then they see
(29:40):
the issues in the healthcare system and the bureaucracies and
nothing sort of really coordinating. However, if you have a pandemic,
like a very serious pandemic, and I'm not talking about
the last one, the healthcare system changes very quickly. Right.
It transcends the politics, all right. It starts breaking through
(30:02):
barriers because it's Trioch's there's there's an emergency and you've
got to fix it quick to get out of the way.
Infrastructure and what will change in this country. It will
have that breaking point and we're seeing it, we're experiencing
it right and that breaking point of and with the
(30:23):
you know, the federal government pouring so much integration on
an already bad situation is just exacerbating our move towards
this particular breaking point.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So some of the things that you've recommended are one,
public ledger, a single website that shows every quarter what
was promised, what's been approved, what's in a contract, and what's.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
Actually been We need transparency.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Number Two, you've set a five year build plan that
everyone can count on that's got a pipeline of not
just what's done, but what we need in workers' training materials,
so that companies and labor can complan for that.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
Right well, exactly it's and in fact we're just about
to do we're in the midst of the study right
now looking at the infrastructure needs of every municipality in
Ontario and next year, and we're evaluating that if we
don't do this, what economics is at risk and what
(31:20):
people's well being is at risk, And we will be
demonstrating for the first time in this country what proper
infrastructure accounting and line of sight to why we're doing
it right. We've got to know our why we're doing
things and how does it support the system. And we're
(31:43):
hoping that that study gets to the Prime Minister's desk.
In fact, the way we're going to do that study
it will lead should lead to his desk because you know,
we're for me with the current Prime minister. I came
from banking in finance. I've met him at the times.
But we're hoping that we can generate a uh, the
(32:06):
example uh in this country that this is what it
looks like and let's get let's do it. Let's get
serious about this because in a housing process is not
going away congestion. We did that congestion study and we
were able to do the math on how that's affecting
people's quality of life.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
You talk about as we just mentioned this, uh, you know,
single website, public ledger. We've talked about a five year
bill plan.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
You've also talked.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
About about things that in business would happen just you
know automatically. You've talked about a a a single.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Space where you can go and and see a dashboard.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Of what's going on and track the milestones and uh
and and and how we're progressing. And then you've talked
about something I thought we had. You said, stable multi
year funding. Don't we have stable multi you're funding? Like
if we're going to build an LRT, if we're going
to build a subway, we're going to build a highway,
we're going to build a pipeline, don't we have stable
multi your funding.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
No. Not from a wholesale system point of view. We've
got funding for projects. Everything's done project by project. There
isn't a pool of funds that is stable at the top. Everything,
as I've mentioned, is assigned for political announcement. It's project
by project. And even the funding of say the projects
(33:30):
that you just mentioned, they're not funded correctly, Like they're
funded to be built, but they're not funded to be operated.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And then they go to Mississauga or Toronto and say
you've got to we'll build it. But then you've got
to figure out funding operations and the repairing men.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
Right, which leads to more taxes and charges on the household.
And we're already living a country that is excrucinatingly taxed
at the household level. And so again you need stability
and safety. I say stability and safety I use the
(34:05):
word safety in that we've got to be able to
trust out politicians and good governments in this country.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So the federal government has announced this I can't remember
what the name of it is, but a process to
get things approved far quicker and to that, okay, well,
let's come back to that in a second. So number one,
get approvals more quickly. Number two this Major Project's Office,
which has someone that's got a reasonable amount of private
(34:33):
sector and public sector experience in Calgary running this Major
Project's office. And number three even last week they announced
a new system for procurement within the Defense Department to
make sure that we get procurement done.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
So is not our government doing things right?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
You say you're worried. Why are you worried when they're
trying to improve the whole process?
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Okay, so first point, faster approvals. What are we approving?
That's the question. What are we approving? What are we
speeding up the approval of that's the problem. We don't
know a line of sight on why we're doing things.
And what you've just described is announcement, announcement, announcement, announcement.
(35:13):
We'll see if anything changes. I doubt it, because these
are piecemeal announcements. There's nothing strategically systemic about it. And
that's the federal government saying it. Well, guess what everything
happens in provinces and municipalities in this country. So all
the announcing and everything else at the top, I'm not
(35:36):
buying it.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
What about this Major Project's Office and the Defense Decupmentment government.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Yeah, the federal government has not been able to evaluate
infrastructure whatsoever to this day. They do not have the
means to tell the difference of as I said, should
we pave roads with asphalt or pave roads with ice cream?
Methods they're using would actually believe it. They're not choose
(36:03):
ice cream from an economic point of view. So they
don't have the ability to avail on what.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
We're doing anything based on costs and not quality, not
long term, no ability.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
No, I'm not saying everything is an extreme statement, because
at least you know, about sixty percent of what's going
on in the country around infrastructure is actually good infrastructure.
I'm talking about the forty percent, and it's the forty
percent that's actually really hurting Canadians, particularly over the last
thirty years. Canadians are asking questions. It's like, why do
(36:35):
we have a housing prices, why do we have to
live in congestion? Why is our standard of living dropped?
And why is the OECDS telling us that we're going
to be the worst performing country over the next forty years.
This is incredible, right, These are the effers of what
we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
You if you if you sat down with our prime minister,
what would you tell them?
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Well, it's start by evaluation and measurement and bookkeeping and
proper accounting, because you can't have a conversation until you
at least measure things.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
But that's the boring stuff. The exciting stuff is the announcements, I.
Speaker 5 (37:12):
Know, and that's why everyone is a dope woman hit
all about announcements. And yes, what I'm talking about is
might rather dry and boring, but it's necessary. But on
top of that, and I think that this particular prime
minister gets it. I just don't think that given the
(37:33):
system that he has dropped into, isn't necessarily going to
allow him to be Mark Carney. You know, we need
to act like a country, right, we need to see
the money. It's got to be stable, safe and not
hijacked around electioneering and announcements. And then we deliver. Right,
(37:55):
We've got to start showing value for money in this
country through good governance stability. It beats slogans right, we
need to be you know, we have to have a
long term view around this topic. Otherwise it's it's just
going to be the gift that keeps on giving to
the current generation because nothing can get done. So yeah,
(38:18):
own a new home, own a home in twenty nine
near home is going to be worth a lot more
because we can't build things. So you know, again it
takes you know, and a lot of what I'm talking
about can actually occur in terms of the measurement to
manage can occur over the next couple of years. In fact,
(38:40):
we're doing it in Prince Edward Island. We've got the
entire government on a modern simulation platform where everyone is
looking at the same thing and they're agreeing to know
what needs to get done and how to evaluate it.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
So infistraat we've.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Got people just talking past people.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So Infrastructure Ontario was established, I don't know what during
the McGinty time period. I believe it's intention to do
exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
Infrastructure was basically put together. So it can execute the
funding and the contract side of infrastructure. It doesn't do evaluation.
Infrastructure Ontario is ninety percent lawyers.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Ninety percent lawyers. But the idea was to centralize it
all because lawyers could do a better job than having
it being political.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
But we're amongst different ministries. We're not talking about infrastructure planning.
We're talking about Oh okay, an announcement's being made, so
let's go on paper it. That's infrastructure Ontario. Right. There's
no one in the room that's actually doing the work
to understand how it all fits in. Right, think of
infrastructure as a Rubik's cube problem. Everyone looking at their
(39:53):
different sides of their discipline and water wastewater and roads
and everything else. They're all trying to side solved this
side of the quebe. But the problem means you can't
solve a Ruby's cube one side at the time. So
they're all bumping into each other because they don't have
line of site. Rhodes doesn't have line of sight on
water and wastewater, or education or healthcare, et cetera, et cetera,
(40:16):
So there's no one really doing this. So it becomes
a piece.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So let's talk about you know transit in the Greater
Toronto area. You know, we had John Tory talking about
smart what was it smart transit or smart trains. Then
we had actually before that, we had David Miller talking
about lerts on almost every road. Then we had Premier
(40:41):
Forward coming in and changed all of that with the
Ontario line.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
One would think, my point, welcome to two times worse
in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
But but like thinking about transit in the Greater Toronto area,
one would think that they're smart people at the TTC
or metrolinks to the Ontario government. They actually can figure
out what the right thing.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Is to do over time.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
How come every single different Premier America comes up with
a different, different strategy.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
You know, I've lectured at UFT at Civil Engineering and
you've got Professor Eric Miller over there who does the
evaluations incredibly, like he's world renowned. But no one's listening.
Politicians and they will look at their constituency and their
(41:36):
values it at a point in time and they'll make announcements.
And that's my point. Amounts announcements are two politicized announcements
are strategic in the way this country works at the moment,
it's very short term twelve months, eighteen months. It's not
(41:56):
longer term in terms of you know, we need to
do this, and sorry, it's going to cost money. It's
going to be boring for the next ten years, but
it will begin to help us solve the housing problem.
Like you know, we're not set up this way at
the moment anymore. Australia is, the UK is, Americans less so,
but there's still the Americans are pretty good at measuring things.
(42:22):
But yeah, we don't have this strategical linement, which is
unfortunate and it's costing us. It's costing our children.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Just remembering some of the names, I think we had
Transit City, then we had Places to Grow, then we
had Smart and we had the Big Move, and then
we had the Ontario line.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
So and a lot of these announcements, and you have
associations and the talking heads in the system. They're all
communications people, right ex Journalists, communications people. They're not in
the system right And again that's part of the challenge
that we're baked into a political cycle.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
A break for some messages and come back with some
including comments about what the heck is the solution to
this problem with our guests in just two minutes.
Speaker 7 (43:06):
Stay with us, everybody, no radio, no problem.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Stream is live on SAGA nine sixty am dot c A.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian radio whire. We've got
Paul Smetton and with us tonight.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Sounds like you've got fascinating career.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Tell us the name of the organization that you lead
and if people are interested in, you know, hearing what
you got to say, is there a website they should
go to?
Speaker 5 (43:43):
Sure, it's a Canadian Center for Economic Analysis. We are
a consulting firm and we provide technology to measure things
like the topics that we're talking about. And now website
is www dot cancs c AM dot co. Join me
(44:03):
on LinkedIn. I write about this at least weekly. At
least weekly.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
I've enjoyed reading your post, so thank you for that.
You've said that we need to act like a country,
that we need to move from theater to test, we
need to move from headlines to outcomes, we need to
move from churn to confidence. Native words, how do we
do that?
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Well? Again, this is rhetorical that we need to act
like a country, and the recent trade war and the
geopolitical pressures that we're feeling from the outside is starting
to test that, and thankfully we're starting to move in
the right direction. That act like the country, stop the
accounting games of Ponsonyx and the illusion that activity equals value. Secondly, like,
(44:56):
let's see the money, make it stable, make it safe,
and then deliver again. It's one ledger or an accounting
system of measurement, you know, show citizens dashboards the five
year pipeline. Like, if we can't explain who benefits and
over what horizon and at what risk, then the project
isn't ready from our point of view. Thirdly, stability beats slogans,
(45:22):
make rollerligned multi year compacts with the norm so that
we're enabling infrastructure that arrives on time. And private markets
we need to scale. We need to get private industry
involved and have them put their neck out rather than
(45:42):
relying upon governments trying to pick winners. And lastly, it's
like it's performance not presses or press releases. You know,
let's start tying dollars down to milestones and outcomes and
reward early delivery and clawback under performance. And like I said,
(46:03):
it's easy to say, in the current environment we're in,
it's going to be damn hard to do. But it
takes you know, it's not a popular thing for myself,
as a business founder and a policy analyst to be
actually saying things like this publicly. But you know, we've
been watching this for too long, and we really are
(46:25):
in a crisis, and we are a little tired about
the talking heads talking past each other and getting back
to that idea that activity is value. No, the activity
that we're embarked upon is not productive, and we're not
really getting serious about things. And I think that we
(46:45):
can do better.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
I think we've got to do a lot better, and
I think we are in a crisis. I think you're
right in that regard. You know, numerous people have talked
about how our productivity is forty percent of what productivity
is in the United States today, and ten.
Speaker 6 (47:00):
Years ago we were equal.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
How we haven't had real growth in media and incomes
in fifteen years. How we are becoming more unequal in
our economic system today. How we are putting on our
kids not only the debt that we talked about, but
(47:22):
housing economics that will mean that they never can have
the dream of home ownership because housing prices are twelve
to fifteen percent of income versus eight percent eight times
and sorry, twelve to fifteen times income in Canada versus
six to eight times in the United States, So about
twice as expensive relative to income in Canada that it
(47:45):
is in the United States, and versus three to five
times when it was fifty years ago. That we're building
the same number of houses today in Canada that we
were building in the nineteen seventies, and the population has
increased dramatically. But you add on to that climate change,
infrastructure deficit that you've talked about, the issue in regards
to AI.
Speaker 6 (48:05):
And how that's going to change our world.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
You know, I think that our kids today have got
a real issue, and we haven't even talked about the
healthcare system that may be underfunded. We haven't talked about pensions,
we haven't talked about long term care. I think our
kids have got some real challenges, and I think our
number one job is to leave a better world for
our kids, and I don't think we're doing that today.
Speaker 6 (48:27):
So I think we've failed.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
And so I think, Paul, a bunch of your recommendations
are things that governments have got to pay attention to.
I remember I was at dinner one time with my kids,
and they told them that I was excited about infrastructure,
and they said, no, one's excited about infrastructure. But I
think the way you've described it is really helpful. Right
on the top, you said that infrastructure is like our
national operating system, and if we think about it that
(48:49):
way from a computer standpoint, that the infrastructure that the
government lays down is the operating system that the rest
of us gets to make use of to enjoy building homes,
building businesses, building an economy, building a life. On you
got to have a good operating system, and I worry
that right now it's not working, and we got we
got to hit reset. We may have to turn it
(49:10):
on and turn it off to see if we can
get something better working again. So, Paul, I really appreciate
you joining us today and challenging us with the problems
and exciting us about the future, even if it's a
little bit.
Speaker 6 (49:19):
Boring and some of the things that we got to
do to implement it.
Speaker 5 (49:22):
So thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (49:23):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (49:24):
Yeah, naicely put Brian, and thanks for the opportunity speak
to you and your audience about these important issues.
Speaker 6 (49:31):
That's our show for tonight.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Everybody you know Mark Kearney's in Washington, and it's going
to get a bunch of press, and personal relationships are important,
but I think that he's got to have the plan
behind him that Paul's talking about about what we're actually
going to do, and and we can't let, you know,
this strategy of chaos and political announcements govern our lives
(49:57):
and our country and our planning. And we need to
have that kind of planning that Paul's talking about. Thanks
for joining us, everybody. I remind you I'm on every
Monday through Friday at six o'clock on nine sixty am.
You can stream me online at TRIPLEWSAGA nine sixty am
dot CA. All my podcasts and videos go up on
my website Brian Crimby dot com, on social media, my
YouTube channel, on podcast servers as soon as.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
The radio show goes broadcast to air.
Speaker 6 (50:18):
Thanks for joining.
Speaker 7 (50:19):
Good Night, everybody, no radio, no problem.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Stream us live on SAGA nine sixty am dot C
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio War.
I've got a really interesting conversation tonight and a really
interesting guest. Paul met Tanin is my guest tonight. He
is the president CEO of the Canadian Center for Economic
Analysis CANSA, which is home to North America's largest socioeconomic
simulation platform. They tracked four thousand topics at once for
(00:41):
government and market analysis. And he's here to explain why
candidate keeps announcing infrastructure can't see what it spends and
is still living the crisis he warned us about fifteen
years ago. That sounds like an interesting intro.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
He's going to.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Talk as well about a couple of other things that
I think are really quin quite of.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
He's going to talk about Ponzi policy.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Is that the name ponzonomics panzinomics fascinating, And we're going
to talk about you know, what he predicted and why
we're stuck interrupt So Paul, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Thank you Ryan. It's nice to have nice to be
on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
So you run and lead a large simulation platform. What
is a large simulation platform, sir?
Speaker 5 (01:28):
So, yeah, we started off twenty five years ago in
the country consulting group in economic policy, demographics, healthcare and
things of that nature. So you know, in order to
understand what tomorrow looks like and what do we have
to do today to change it, we have these very
(01:48):
large mathematical simulation platforms which help us understand what we
should expect and how we might be able to change it. So, yes,
we're proudly the largest socio nomics simulation platform in North America.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And you say that for fifteen years you've argued that
Canada treats infrastructurally a political prop instead of the economy's
operating system. Really a problem is, yes.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
It's Look, it's we started looking at these issues back
in two thousand and eight nine, and we've performed work
in twenty ten which essentially predicted what's happening today. You know,
we've then speaking to government policymakers. But you know the
problem is infrastructure in this country is so politicized. We
(02:39):
can talk more about what that means, but we don't
treat infrastructure seriously. And the housing crisis that we have
right now is actually a direct symptom of the fact
that we don't treat infrastructure seriously in this country.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
How do we not treat it seriously?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
We have this major Project's office, we have you know,
we were started by an infrastruct sure a plan to
build the railway across the country. We've got LRTs being
built in Toronto. We've got subway expansions being built in Toronto.
How do we not treat it seriously?
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Yeah? When I say treated seriously, I'm talking more at
the federal government and provincial government levels. Infrastructure is like
it's a political football, it's an announcement theater. Essentially, infrastructure
treating is treated as a political, politically aligned announcements. They're
(03:31):
not necessarily fundamental infrastructure requirements that we need. It's you know,
for example, when we look at the uncertainty around infrastructure
funding in this country, we're actually two times worst in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Two times worse than Mexico.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Two times worst of Mexico, and on average we're almost
four times worse than our peers in Australia or the UK.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Hold it, hold it in what ending in productivity? In
time delays.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
What how are we worse?
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Yes, spanding for sure, But it's the announcement cycle that
it's so politicized that you get an announcement and then
a couple of years later that announcement goes away and
they're onto something else, and then onto something else and
then on to something else. Just visualized for a second,
(04:25):
that is kind of like a b roller coaster. Because
there's no national plan, there's no certainty of where we're
headed as a country. From an infrastructure point of view,
and yes, municipalities and you know here in Ontario they
are delivering transit, they are doing some good infrastructure, but
infrastructures are a very large conversation water and wastewater. It's
(04:50):
about coordination between different levels of government and that's not happening.
And our productivity over the last thirty years is suffered
because of Ultimately, we don't have long term plan in
this country, particularly when it comes around infrastructure. And infrastructure
is important because it's the very surface that we live,
(05:10):
work and play on. Without it, we can't grow.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
The implication of what you're talking about is pretty profound,
and I'm quoting from what your organization sent me in
twenty ten, you warned that we drift toward one percent
real growth to twenty sixty if we stuck with stop start,
politicized spending a week evaluation. By twenty twenty one, the
OECD was projecting that we would have the slowest per
(05:33):
capita growth in the OECD, exactly the rest that you flagged.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
So we're we're not in good shape.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Correct, No, we're not in good shape. And the problem
with infrastructure it takes a fifteen year view in order
to be able to get it right. And you know,
when we're talking housing crisis, or we're talking congestion, or
we're talking higher taxes, these are all ultimately symptoms of
the fact that we haven't planned our communities and infrastructure spend,
(06:05):
and we have not delivered that to the private industry
so that they could spend the next ten to fifteen
years putting their capital at risk and training people for
the infrastructure that is planned to be built. We're one
of the few OECD countries that does not have a
national plan, and therefore we're suffering the issues of the
(06:28):
fact that we're not coordinated and infrastructure unfortunately has been
used as political football.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And then you've described it. I love this word and
I need to explain it better. If you could, you
say that that's led to a situation where we have ponzonomics,
ponzionomics alac Canadian style, where we build a national infrastructure
strategy with a public ledger and pipeline and tie money
to males stones choose. What we don't do is build
(06:56):
a national infrastructure strategy with a public ledger and pipeline,
tame money to Marster's choose wisely, fund predictably, maintain relentlessly,
and measure transparently. So obviously you must think that today
we don't fund predictively, we don't maintain relentlessly, and we
don't measure transparently.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
And that's led to something you call panzinomics.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yeah, ponsonomics is it's slightly independent to the conversation about
infrastructure that we're having, But ponzonomics is a it's something
that we here at the Cansea, the Canadian Center for Economics,
you know, we're shocked with, particularly in the last decade.
And if you have a moment, I'll briefly explain what
(07:37):
ponzonomics is. Please please, Okay, So just imagine that you're
paying a work or a thousand dollars to dig a
hole in the ground and you pay another worker to
fill that hole exactly back to its original state. Now,
nothing's happened right now. If industry did that activity, then
(07:58):
industry would lose two thousand dollars. It paid one thousand
dollars to dig a hole, one thousand dollars to fill
it back in, and there's zero productivity according to economic accounting. However,
if government had paid for that, it's added two thousand
dollars to GDP productivities one thousand dollars per hour. And
politicians will say, hey, stronger, game change. And then it
(08:21):
gets worse because they will try and book that activity
as capital investments, as if it looks like it's infrastructure
that it's not. And it's even worse when governments, and
particularly in the last ten to fifteen years, it's even
worse when they borrow against it because they can keep
then doing it again and again and again, and they're
(08:43):
pushing the problem to the next generation without actually having
anything to show for it. So that's ponzonomics. It's basically
keeping people busy but not actually productively adding to the
ability of the system to SUCA in itself and to
actually grow prosperity, prosperity.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Sorry, do you think that rather than focus on growth
on prosperity, we've just been trying to keep people busy.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Yeah. Look, it's a sad fact. From my opinion is
we live in a highly politicized country. You hear the
media talking about other countries and everything else, but this
country is highly politicized. We really do lack proper evaluation
and proper business cases. And essentially this country has been
(09:36):
fixated on just basically paying people money and using infrastructure
as social programs as opposed to what they should be
is building the infrastructure and the means for the countries
who actually take risk, innovate, get to work and be
(09:56):
prosperous on its own. And yet every time there's a problem,
people's psy government should do X y Z. And the
problem with ponsonomics is there's nothing to show for all
this money that has been spent.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
There's gonna be a fascinating conversation tonight, everybody, we're gonna
take break and come back. I'm going to ask our
guest Paul what this has cost us, and then we're
going to talk about what the potential solutions are Stay
with us everyone. This is gonna be, I think, a
really interesting conversation to sort of set the policy agenda.
We've got Mark Kearney going to the United States and
talking to Donald Trump about the economy.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
We've got this major.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Project's office, we've got national infrastructure, we've got a housing strategy.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Maybe they should be listening to Paul a little bit
more than they are.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Stay with U.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Minutes, No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on Sagay
ninety six am dot C A.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Wire. We've
got Paul Smetton and with us today. He's the president
and CEO of the Canadian Center for Economic Analysis.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It is a socioeconomics simulation platform.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
They tracked four thousand different topics and he is just
described to us something that he calls ponzonomics. And he
thinks that we're overly political in Canada in regards to
deciding what to do and our policies, and that that's
part of the problem and that it's led to some challenges.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And we're going to run through some of those challenges.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Because you've got a pretty blunt diagnosis in your assessment
here you've talked about we're stuck in announcement theater, we
indulge in these puzzy economics, And you think that we've
therefore invested chronically less in infrastructure than we need to,
that we've got funding that's less than our peers, that
we invest less in productivity, that our housing is a
(11:56):
real challenge, that tax at rates only above our peers.
Tell us all a little bit, if you could a
boat about the impact of this panzinomics, about this lack
of coherent strategy.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Sure, so, fifteen years ago we'd written a report and
essentially we identify that infrastructure should be proper infrastructure. We're
talking water, waste, water, freeways, transit should be sixty percent
higher than what it was, and infrastructure also needs to
(12:30):
be maintained, and that should have been over eighty percent higher,
because we don't maintain infrastructure particularly well in this country.
But ignoring infrastructure and not having a long term plan
does a couple of things. Firstly, it takes away your
ability to become more productive, to do more with the
(12:52):
same amount of resources or do more with less. Secondly,
industry plan to put their private capital at risk because
they don't know what the plan is. It's a roller coaster,
and therefore they don't upskill or invest in upskilling or
skilling the labor force of the future. What does it
(13:15):
cost us over the past fifteen years, the uncertainty and infrastructure,
as I mentioned, it's two times worse in Mexico, uncertainly
being stop start, stop start. You know, there's no coordination
over the last fifteen years. It's cost US six hundred
billion dollars. Right, that's almost forty percent of the current
(13:37):
value of the economy. And the delays that have been occurring.
You could take a two hundred billion dollar investment in
infrastructure and if you delay it, you're actually ripping out
about one hundred and forty four billion of its benefits.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I got to interrupt your apologize Mexico. Did Canadians think
that Max is this?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
You know? This this this example of incredible great governance
that's non politicized and is investing in spectacular infrastructure. How
have you assessed that we are what is it two
times worse than Mexico?
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Yes, so, if you have a look at the accounts
here and what infrastructure announcements have made and where they
go and where they end up and do they get
finished and are they delayed? And then you look at
OECD countries including Mexico, and then you basically see that
we are twice. It's worse when you look at the uncertainty, right,
(14:37):
the variability. It's like, think of the uncertainty is I
say yes on a Monday and I know on a Tuesday, right,
and yeah, we're twice its West Mexico. Right now. Mexico
is investing in infrastructure. It has to. It's growing that
they have a national plan. We don't.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Some people think that the problem is is our approval system.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
That we've got an overly complicated approval system that needs
you know, every indigenous group to agree, every province to agree,
every community to agree, and that that approval and you know,
you know, some people called this bill that was passed
by the prior Trudeau government that don't build new pipelines
anywhere ever forever?
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Bill?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Is it the approval process that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Other people have said, we've got a procurement problem. That's
the issue that we always have to go with the
lowest bid and we segment out the you know, the
contracts into pieces and then the pieces don't add up
together and we have no one sort of overseen.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
And that's what you know.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
The Eglington l r T has been it's the procurement
problem has been used as the as the as the
problem you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It's just a national plan. So what's the problem.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Why do we do infrastructure so poorly relative to to
what we could and should and other people do well.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
When you study other countries like a Stritter or the
they actually have an infrastructure pipeline and ledger for example,
you know in Australia at the UK exactly what's being built,
where it's built, why it's being built, and how it's
actually going to benefit the economy and the wellbeing of
their citizens. We don't have that ledger. The PDO came
(16:22):
out the other day and basically said, oh, the government's
going to spend what one hundred and fifty six billion
dollars on infrastructure, but we're not sure on what because
we don't have the data or the information. Infrastructure and
the issues across this country are complex and there's no
silver bullet. But right now housing is in crisis. It's
(16:44):
a direct symptom of what we're talking about now, and
the fact that in Ontario, housing is taxed twice as
much as anything else in the economy. Is another symptom
of by virtue of the fact that we don't we've
not treated infrastructure properly for the last thirty years.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
How is housing tax twice as much as anything else
in the economy.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Well, it is, and primarily through development charges, sales tax,
and land transfer taxes. So a new home that's produced
in Ontario, has I averaged thirty six percent of that
new home if it's a million dollars, three hundred and
sixty thousand dollars of that million dollars is taxation. In
(17:29):
the rest of the economy, it would be about one
hundred and sixty thousand, one hundred and seventy thousand. Why
are homes being taxed aggressively because people need homes and
you can't avoid the tax. That is a sad predicament
of the situation that we're in that each time there's
an issue, for instance, congestion here in Toronto, we came
(17:53):
out with that report and now they're talking about putting
a building charge on home in Toronto to somehow deal
with congestion. I find it a little offensive that because
we have a breakdown in governance. Right, the go to
in this country is tax, more fees, more charges.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So building starts at an all time low, probably a
thirty year low.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
The condo market, which we knew exactly three years ago
would happen.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
The condo market is in an ace age.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
A single building, single family dwelling unit building is similarly
you know, anemic.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
We supposedly need three point five million homes in the
Greater Toronto area of southern Ontario, and building starts at an
all time goal.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Just on that point, Just on that point, Brian, every
announcement that the politicians made about housing has almost a
new zero probability of occurring. We've done the math. That's
what that simulation platform is about. We do a lot
of work seamate see. But it's ultimately because they're out
of touch with the infrastructure required to put our house
(19:09):
on a street that has electricity and water and wastewater
and everything else. All these grand statements is an example
of the politicization and announcement theater of the country that
we live in.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But Paul, in twenty twenty two, the Ford government came
out with a Housing Affordability Task Force with fifty seven
recommendations of what to do. It's three years later, three
and a bit years later.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
Now, how can thath's happened? It's a great Canadian tradition
to have more meetings, have more recommendations, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. But unfortunately, and I can describe the difference
between so Australia and Canada, but unfortunately in this country
we have so many levels of government. We do have
(19:53):
a visiting system of rules and everything else, which is
fine because I live in this country. I'm a citizen
here cause of the fact that we care about you know,
the person next to us. The problem is, though, that
we aren't all on the same team, and we haven't
been certainly since I've arrived, you know, twenty five years ago,
(20:15):
and something needs to break before the country starts to
understand how deep the issues run. And we're moving towards
that break.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
You you also, I think, really lead to sort of
an intergenerational inecro argument. What you sent me was that
you say that a twenty year old faces a lifetime
productivity bill measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars because
we didn't build when it counted, correct, So because my
(20:48):
generation messed up. My kids are going to be hundreds
of thousands of dollars less well off.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Is that what you're saying correct? Because the infrastructure supports
the ability of a person to get out and work
and to be productive. If the infrastructure is not there,
the person has less opportunity and therefore they earn less
wage in their lifetime and on average, and this is
back to twenty ten again on average, I think I
(21:17):
forget the number, but it's about the day that a
person in this country twenty years old starts their job.
They're almost like given a bill by saying that, you know,
by the time you get to retirement in today's dollars,
you're going to be three hundred thousand dollars poorer because
(21:39):
that's what they're missing out on as the opportunity cost.
And so that metric and statistic we designed that and
wanted to calculate it to make it real to normal
people on the ground. This is costing generations behind us,
and we've got a lot of debt now that they
(22:00):
will pay we won't, but we've got nothing to show
for it. And that leads us back to the politicization
of this country and the fact that big infrastructure projects
are their announcements. They're politically motivated for sure, and they're
also a good way, unfortunately, to transfer money from government
(22:22):
to private interests.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
Paul, you've been talking about this, you say, for more
than fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Is anyone listening?
Speaker 5 (22:29):
People listen? The problem is is that no one's really
responsible because you've just got this fracturing that the FEDS are,
you know, aren't locked into what the provinces are doing
and vice versa, and then you've got the municipalities. I
feel bad for the municipalities because this is all the
(22:50):
problems get pushed down in the municipalities and they don't
have the funding to deliver infrastructure that the FEDS used
to build. And in fact, the FEDS are the biggest
beneficiary from what municipalities do in infrastructuring, yet they won't
show up to fund infrastructure. And that's a problem. And
(23:11):
that's why you've now got a situation where housing is
taxed two times more than the rest of anything else
in the economy because the municipalities have gone down that
path of having to charge development charges, for example, because
(23:32):
the provincial and federal levels of government are not funding them.
Correctly or according to their responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back in two minutes. I'm going to ask our
guest Paul, what's the solution? How do we change things
if people are listening but not responding and not doing
anything about it.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
How come?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Because clearly we've got some major issues here. It he's outlined,
and I think we all sort of feel it. I
think we realize that the housing business is claudyclysmic right now.
We see the delays on the Eglington LRT. We wonder
about why we're not building the pipelines that we should
be building, liquefied natural gas plants, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
But what's the solution and how do we get something done?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Stay? Is everyone back in two minutes talking about panzinomics,
talking about politalization and how we solve it to build
the kind of country we want to build.
Speaker 7 (24:36):
Back into stream us Live at SAGA nine six am
dot CA.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
A welcome back every went to the Brian crimeby Radio.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I've got Paul Smetton and with us today. He's the
president and CEO of the Canadian Center for Economic Analysis.
It's a socioeconomic simulation platform. He tracks four thousand different
topics and he says, we're not working. We got a
big problem in Canada. We've got political fracture, we got pasonomics,
we got political theater, we've got announcement theater. We got
(25:19):
real problems. So, Paul, how do we stop announcement theater?
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Well, it begins measuring things properly and accounting for things.
Because what we've got to do is take hiding places
away from people who do the announcement theater. But there's
no one in the room saying, well, hang on, that's
just announcement theater. I'll give you a good example. Just
prior to the election, the previous Prime minister made an
announcement about a very large infrastructure project that we believe
(25:49):
does not have a business case at all. We've also
estimated that that's going to cost Ontario about fifty billion
dollars over the next twenty years. That announcement on its own,
where that could actually go to water and wastewater and
building out and supporting the very sort of landscape that
(26:09):
we need to build housing.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So how do we what was that announcement that had
do a business case?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I'm not going there but there was a very large
announcement and anyone with an internet connection can look at
what Trudeau announced just prior the election, hy Speed Real
something like that. So moving in terms of how do
we fix this, like we're not evaluating things properly and
(26:38):
governments like that. Politicians like that because it creates a
hiding place, right you don't have someone in the room
that says, hang on, how's this affecting the who, the what,
the when, the we're wearing the why? None of that
has occurred. And I won't get too technical, but this
country is living off what's called the input output models
that can't tell the difference of if you're spending money
(26:59):
on ice cream where you're spending money on infrastructure. People
who don't want to alight shone on what's going on,
they prefer input out.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So our new prem Minister Mark Courney has talked about
separating note the budget into operating expenses versus capital expenses,
which is what companies do. They'll account for capital, you know, separately.
Is that a positive move? You've argued for your build plan?
So is a five year build plan comparable to what Corney's.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Talking Let's get back to the operating versus capital and splitting.
That scares me because it's another accounting game, just like
plans and once splitting operating and capital is not about
addressing issue. It's about actually changing the optics of a
very bad situation. And what gets booked at capital was
(27:52):
the example I gave you previously. Dig a hole, fill
it back in, call it capital. That's great, right, but
it's not. We don't have measurement systems, we don't have
a ledger, or we don't treat infrastructure as that's the
operating system of the country. I understand why the current
Prime Minister wants to go in the direction of operating
(28:13):
versus capital because it's going to make it a lot
easier to change the optics, right, because all we see
right now is a lot of debt and nothing really
on the ground has happened. Where did the money go? So,
like I said earlier this year, the announcement, it doesn't
(28:34):
have a business case. And yet you know we're going
to be getting into something that's seventy to one hundred
billion dollars that has a one in five hundred chance
of actually achieving what you know the politicians are telling us.
And that's not our statistic that's from Oxford University on
all those kinds of projects around the world. So, you know,
(28:55):
if we want to lean in and ask the question
of what's it going to take to get things fixed?
You know, my earlier point was I don't think there's
too many actors in the system that are benefiting or
somehow getting what they need at the hest of productivity
and the quality of life of Canadians. And therefore nature
(29:18):
tells us the only way that changes is when something
breaks existentially, right. I can explain what that is through
an analogy if you like, Please, something breaks. So healthcare
system in this country. Canadians are very proud of their
healthcare system until they're in it, and then they see
(29:40):
the issues in the healthcare system and the bureaucracies and
nothing sort of really coordinating. However, if you have a pandemic,
like a very serious pandemic, and I'm not talking about
the last one, the healthcare system changes very quickly. Right.
It transcends the politics, all right. It starts breaking through
(30:02):
barriers because it's Trioch's there's there's an emergency and you've
got to fix it quick to get out of the way.
Infrastructure and what will change in this country. It will
have that breaking point and we're seeing it, we're experiencing
it right and that breaking point of and with the
(30:23):
you know, the federal government pouring so much integration on
an already bad situation is just exacerbating our move towards
this particular breaking point.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So some of the things that you've recommended are one,
public ledger, a single website that shows every quarter what
was promised, what's been approved, what's in a contract, and what's.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
Actually been We need transparency.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Number Two, you've set a five year build plan that
everyone can count on that's got a pipeline of not
just what's done, but what we need in workers' training materials,
so that companies and labor can complan for that.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
Right well, exactly it's and in fact we're just about
to do we're in the midst of the study right
now looking at the infrastructure needs of every municipality in
Ontario and next year, and we're evaluating that if we
don't do this, what economics is at risk and what
(31:20):
people's well being is at risk, And we will be
demonstrating for the first time in this country what proper
infrastructure accounting and line of sight to why we're doing
it right. We've got to know our why we're doing
things and how does it support the system. And we're
(31:43):
hoping that that study gets to the Prime Minister's desk.
In fact, the way we're going to do that study
it will lead should lead to his desk because you know,
we're for me with the current Prime minister. I came
from banking in finance. I've met him at the times.
But we're hoping that we can generate a uh, the
(32:06):
example uh in this country that this is what it
looks like and let's get let's do it. Let's get
serious about this because in a housing process is not
going away congestion. We did that congestion study and we
were able to do the math on how that's affecting
people's quality of life.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
You talk about as we just mentioned this, uh, you know,
single website, public ledger. We've talked about a five year
bill plan.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
You've also talked.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
About about things that in business would happen just you
know automatically. You've talked about a a a single.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Space where you can go and and see a dashboard.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Of what's going on and track the milestones and uh
and and and how we're progressing. And then you've talked
about something I thought we had. You said, stable multi
year funding. Don't we have stable multi you're funding? Like
if we're going to build an LRT, if we're going
to build a subway, we're going to build a highway,
we're going to build a pipeline, don't we have stable
multi your funding.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
No. Not from a wholesale system point of view. We've
got funding for projects. Everything's done project by project. There
isn't a pool of funds that is stable at the top. Everything,
as I've mentioned, is assigned for political announcement. It's project
by project. And even the funding of say the projects
(33:30):
that you just mentioned, they're not funded correctly, Like they're
funded to be built, but they're not funded to be operated.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And then they go to Mississauga or Toronto and say
you've got to we'll build it. But then you've got
to figure out funding operations and the repairing men.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
Right, which leads to more taxes and charges on the household.
And we're already living a country that is excrucinatingly taxed
at the household level. And so again you need stability
and safety. I say stability and safety I use the
(34:05):
word safety in that we've got to be able to
trust out politicians and good governments in this country.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So the federal government has announced this I can't remember
what the name of it is, but a process to
get things approved far quicker and to that, okay, well,
let's come back to that in a second. So number one,
get approvals more quickly. Number two this Major Project's Office,
which has someone that's got a reasonable amount of private
(34:33):
sector and public sector experience in Calgary running this Major
Project's office. And number three even last week they announced
a new system for procurement within the Defense Department to
make sure that we get procurement done.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
So is not our government doing things right?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
You say you're worried. Why are you worried when they're
trying to improve the whole process?
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Okay, so first point, faster approvals. What are we approving?
That's the question. What are we approving? What are we
speeding up the approval of that's the problem. We don't
know a line of sight on why we're doing things.
And what you've just described is announcement, announcement, announcement, announcement.
(35:13):
We'll see if anything changes. I doubt it, because these
are piecemeal announcements. There's nothing strategically systemic about it. And
that's the federal government saying it. Well, guess what everything
happens in provinces and municipalities in this country. So all
the announcing and everything else at the top, I'm not
(35:36):
buying it.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
What about this Major Project's Office and the Defense Decupmentment government.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Yeah, the federal government has not been able to evaluate
infrastructure whatsoever to this day. They do not have the
means to tell the difference of as I said, should
we pave roads with asphalt or pave roads with ice cream?
Methods they're using would actually believe it. They're not choose
(36:03):
ice cream from an economic point of view. So they
don't have the ability to avail on what.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
We're doing anything based on costs and not quality, not
long term, no ability.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
No, I'm not saying everything is an extreme statement, because
at least you know, about sixty percent of what's going
on in the country around infrastructure is actually good infrastructure.
I'm talking about the forty percent, and it's the forty
percent that's actually really hurting Canadians, particularly over the last
thirty years. Canadians are asking questions. It's like, why do
(36:35):
we have a housing prices, why do we have to
live in congestion? Why is our standard of living dropped?
And why is the OECDS telling us that we're going
to be the worst performing country over the next forty years.
This is incredible, right, These are the effers of what
we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
You if you if you sat down with our prime minister,
what would you tell them?
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Well, it's start by evaluation and measurement and bookkeeping and
proper accounting, because you can't have a conversation until you
at least measure things.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
But that's the boring stuff. The exciting stuff is the announcements, I.
Speaker 5 (37:12):
Know, and that's why everyone is a dope woman hit
all about announcements. And yes, what I'm talking about is
might rather dry and boring, but it's necessary. But on
top of that, and I think that this particular prime
minister gets it. I just don't think that given the
(37:33):
system that he has dropped into, isn't necessarily going to
allow him to be Mark Carney. You know, we need
to act like a country, right, we need to see
the money. It's got to be stable, safe and not
hijacked around electioneering and announcements. And then we deliver. Right,
(37:55):
We've got to start showing value for money in this
country through good governance stability. It beats slogans right, we
need to be you know, we have to have a
long term view around this topic. Otherwise it's it's just
going to be the gift that keeps on giving to
the current generation because nothing can get done. So yeah,
(38:18):
own a new home, own a home in twenty nine
near home is going to be worth a lot more
because we can't build things. So you know, again it
takes you know, and a lot of what I'm talking
about can actually occur in terms of the measurement to
manage can occur over the next couple of years. In fact,
(38:40):
we're doing it in Prince Edward Island. We've got the
entire government on a modern simulation platform where everyone is
looking at the same thing and they're agreeing to know
what needs to get done and how to evaluate it.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
So infistraat we've.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Got people just talking past people.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So Infrastructure Ontario was established, I don't know what during
the McGinty time period. I believe it's intention to do
exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
Infrastructure was basically put together. So it can execute the
funding and the contract side of infrastructure. It doesn't do evaluation.
Infrastructure Ontario is ninety percent lawyers.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Ninety percent lawyers. But the idea was to centralize it
all because lawyers could do a better job than having
it being political.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
But we're amongst different ministries. We're not talking about infrastructure planning.
We're talking about Oh okay, an announcement's being made, so
let's go on paper it. That's infrastructure Ontario. Right. There's
no one in the room that's actually doing the work
to understand how it all fits in. Right, think of
infrastructure as a Rubik's cube problem. Everyone looking at their
(39:53):
different sides of their discipline and water wastewater and roads
and everything else. They're all trying to side solved this
side of the quebe. But the problem means you can't
solve a Ruby's cube one side at the time. So
they're all bumping into each other because they don't have
line of site. Rhodes doesn't have line of sight on
water and wastewater, or education or healthcare, et cetera, et cetera,
(40:16):
So there's no one really doing this. So it becomes
a piece.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So let's talk about you know transit in the Greater
Toronto area. You know, we had John Tory talking about
smart what was it smart transit or smart trains. Then
we had actually before that, we had David Miller talking
about lerts on almost every road. Then we had Premier
(40:41):
Forward coming in and changed all of that with the
Ontario line.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
One would think, my point, welcome to two times worse
in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
But but like thinking about transit in the Greater Toronto area,
one would think that they're smart people at the TTC
or metrolinks to the Ontario government. They actually can figure
out what the right thing.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Is to do over time.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
How come every single different Premier America comes up with
a different, different strategy.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
You know, I've lectured at UFT at Civil Engineering and
you've got Professor Eric Miller over there who does the
evaluations incredibly, like he's world renowned. But no one's listening.
Politicians and they will look at their constituency and their
(41:36):
values it at a point in time and they'll make announcements.
And that's my point. Amounts announcements are two politicized announcements
are strategic in the way this country works at the moment,
it's very short term twelve months, eighteen months. It's not
(41:56):
longer term in terms of you know, we need to
do this, and sorry, it's going to cost money. It's
going to be boring for the next ten years, but
it will begin to help us solve the housing problem.
Like you know, we're not set up this way at
the moment anymore. Australia is, the UK is, Americans less so,
but there's still the Americans are pretty good at measuring things.
(42:22):
But yeah, we don't have this strategical linement, which is
unfortunate and it's costing us. It's costing our children.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Just remembering some of the names, I think we had
Transit City, then we had Places to Grow, then we
had Smart and we had the Big Move, and then
we had the Ontario line.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
So and a lot of these announcements, and you have
associations and the talking heads in the system. They're all
communications people, right ex Journalists, communications people. They're not in
the system right And again that's part of the challenge
that we're baked into a political cycle.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
A break for some messages and come back with some
including comments about what the heck is the solution to
this problem with our guests in just two minutes.
Speaker 7 (43:06):
Stay with us, everybody, no radio, no problem.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Stream is live on SAGA nine sixty am dot c A.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian radio whire. We've got
Paul Smetton and with us tonight.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Sounds like you've got fascinating career.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Tell us the name of the organization that you lead
and if people are interested in, you know, hearing what
you got to say, is there a website they should
go to?
Speaker 5 (43:43):
Sure, it's a Canadian Center for Economic Analysis. We are
a consulting firm and we provide technology to measure things
like the topics that we're talking about. And now website
is www dot cancs c AM dot co. Join me
(44:03):
on LinkedIn. I write about this at least weekly. At
least weekly.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
I've enjoyed reading your post, so thank you for that.
You've said that we need to act like a country,
that we need to move from theater to test, we
need to move from headlines to outcomes, we need to
move from churn to confidence. Native words, how do we
do that?
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Well? Again, this is rhetorical that we need to act
like a country, and the recent trade war and the
geopolitical pressures that we're feeling from the outside is starting
to test that, and thankfully we're starting to move in
the right direction. That act like the country, stop the
accounting games of Ponsonyx and the illusion that activity equals value. Secondly, like,
(44:56):
let's see the money, make it stable, make it safe,
and then deliver again. It's one ledger or an accounting
system of measurement, you know, show citizens dashboards the five
year pipeline. Like, if we can't explain who benefits and
over what horizon and at what risk, then the project
isn't ready from our point of view. Thirdly, stability beats slogans,
(45:22):
make rollerligned multi year compacts with the norm so that
we're enabling infrastructure that arrives on time. And private markets
we need to scale. We need to get private industry
involved and have them put their neck out rather than
(45:42):
relying upon governments trying to pick winners. And lastly, it's
like it's performance not presses or press releases. You know,
let's start tying dollars down to milestones and outcomes and
reward early delivery and clawback under performance. And like I said,
(46:03):
it's easy to say, in the current environment we're in,
it's going to be damn hard to do. But it
takes you know, it's not a popular thing for myself,
as a business founder and a policy analyst to be
actually saying things like this publicly. But you know, we've
been watching this for too long, and we really are
(46:25):
in a crisis, and we are a little tired about
the talking heads talking past each other and getting back
to that idea that activity is value. No, the activity
that we're embarked upon is not productive, and we're not
really getting serious about things. And I think that we
(46:45):
can do better.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
I think we've got to do a lot better, and
I think we are in a crisis. I think you're
right in that regard. You know, numerous people have talked
about how our productivity is forty percent of what productivity
is in the United States today, and ten.
Speaker 6 (47:00):
Years ago we were equal.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
How we haven't had real growth in media and incomes
in fifteen years. How we are becoming more unequal in
our economic system today. How we are putting on our
kids not only the debt that we talked about, but
(47:22):
housing economics that will mean that they never can have
the dream of home ownership because housing prices are twelve
to fifteen percent of income versus eight percent eight times
and sorry, twelve to fifteen times income in Canada versus
six to eight times in the United States, So about
twice as expensive relative to income in Canada that it
(47:45):
is in the United States, and versus three to five
times when it was fifty years ago. That we're building
the same number of houses today in Canada that we
were building in the nineteen seventies, and the population has
increased dramatically. But you add on to that climate change,
infrastructure deficit that you've talked about, the issue in regards
to AI.
Speaker 6 (48:05):
And how that's going to change our world.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
You know, I think that our kids today have got
a real issue, and we haven't even talked about the
healthcare system that may be underfunded. We haven't talked about pensions,
we haven't talked about long term care. I think our
kids have got some real challenges, and I think our
number one job is to leave a better world for
our kids, and I don't think we're doing that today.
Speaker 6 (48:27):
So I think we've failed.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
And so I think, Paul, a bunch of your recommendations
are things that governments have got to pay attention to.
I remember I was at dinner one time with my kids,
and they told them that I was excited about infrastructure,
and they said, no, one's excited about infrastructure. But I
think the way you've described it is really helpful. Right
on the top, you said that infrastructure is like our
national operating system, and if we think about it that
(48:49):
way from a computer standpoint, that the infrastructure that the
government lays down is the operating system that the rest
of us gets to make use of to enjoy building homes,
building businesses, building an economy, building a life. On you
got to have a good operating system, and I worry
that right now it's not working, and we got we
got to hit reset. We may have to turn it
(49:10):
on and turn it off to see if we can
get something better working again. So, Paul, I really appreciate
you joining us today and challenging us with the problems
and exciting us about the future, even if it's a
little bit.
Speaker 6 (49:19):
Boring and some of the things that we got to
do to implement it.
Speaker 5 (49:22):
So thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (49:23):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (49:24):
Yeah, naicely put Brian, and thanks for the opportunity speak
to you and your audience about these important issues.
Speaker 6 (49:31):
That's our show for tonight.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Everybody you know Mark Kearney's in Washington, and it's going
to get a bunch of press, and personal relationships are important,
but I think that he's got to have the plan
behind him that Paul's talking about about what we're actually
going to do, and and we can't let, you know,
this strategy of chaos and political announcements govern our lives
(49:57):
and our country and our planning. And we need to
have that kind of planning that Paul's talking about. Thanks
for joining us, everybody. I remind you I'm on every
Monday through Friday at six o'clock on nine sixty am.
You can stream me online at TRIPLEWSAGA nine sixty am
dot CA. All my podcasts and videos go up on
my website Brian Crimby dot com, on social media, my
YouTube channel, on podcast servers as soon as.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
The radio show goes broadcast to air.
Speaker 6 (50:18):
Thanks for joining.
Speaker 7 (50:19):
Good Night, everybody, no radio, no problem.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Stream us live on SAGA nine sixty am dot C
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