Nothing the government gives you is free. Free is a buzz word politicians use to win elections, but what they offer is not free.
It's impossible to offer something that requires money to operate for free. Government requires money to operate. Your military, your grade schools, colleges, nationalized healthcare, transit system, power grid, roads, sewer, etcetera etcetera, they all cost money.
And that money comes from YOU.
If you are a taxpayer, you are paying for government services even the ones they claim are free. If you're not a taxpayer and you're using the services are paying for, you're a moocher. That's just the truth.
It doesn't matter if you're capitalist or socialist, you're still paying for government services. Capitalists pay for stuff up front with lower taxes at the end. Socialists pay extremely high taxes. Either way, both are paying for their supposedly free stuff.
As Canada is finding out the hard way, when you pretend to give more "free" stuff than you can afford, you screw things up for the people in your country. It's massive and unsustainable debt that leads to recessions and eventually, if left unchecked, depressions.
Canada has three options. Take away the pretend free stuff (and make people mad) or raise taxes (and make people mad) or let the country go bankrupt and slip into civil war.
Sucks to be Canadian right now.
Once most people get used to having pretend free stuff, they don't like having it taken away. They've bought the illusion that it's free and they're entitled to it. They're idiots. See above. But they will resist giving up their perceived free perks. Politicians need to win elections and that means keeping people happy. For liberals, the win votes by giving pretend free stuff away. I.e. by lying.
Canadians pay 30 to 40% in taxes per taxpayer. For a lot of Canadians, that's a lot of money. The myth that quality of living in Canada is so much better than the US isn't true. The quality is great if you're rich, but then it's great anywhere you go, but if you're poor in Canada, your quality of life is no better than for the poor south of the border. When governments raise taxes, it's the poor who suffer. Conservatives get their votes by claiming they're the party of fiscal responsibility so they won't raise taxes and risk alienating voters.
That leads option 3. Canada will go bankrupt. Then what? Just as America's economic woes affects our neighbors, Canada's will affect us. Higher costs in the future? More contested trade war? Maybe even open hostilities.
As Trump slaps tarrifs on Canada, Canada is worried about its debt. The tarrifs make that debt worse. Canada will respond negatively if it has to to protect its own citizens.
I'm all for bringing manufacturing back to the US and renegotiating our trade deals, but we can't be jerks about it. Not good for business.
That being said, Canada is a mess and needs to stop the sanctimonious virtue signaling.
