This Week in Canada: ‘Canada First’ Is Easier Said Than Done

Welcome back to This Week in Canada, where the Conservatives sound a lot like the Liberals, China is coming whether you like it or not, and more. Let’s jump right in!

Pierre Poilievre came to New York City last week to sell Americans on free trade and make the case for Canada. “Let’s knock down those tariffs,” Canada’s Conservative leader said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. And Americans who heard Poilievre talk about “free enterprise” and “getting government out of the way” may imagine that he is an extremely northern version of Javier Milei, the president of Argentina. He isn’t.

When Poilievre visited The Free Press on Thursday, I asked him about something that has long puzzled me. Poilievre calls himself a champion of free enterprise, yet he remains remarkably comfortable with large parts of Canada’s socialist economic model. Why not open protected industries like dairy, telecommunications, airlines, and banking to genuine competition? And why not challenge its most sacred socialist institution of all: healthcare?

Poilievre pushed back, citing Conservative proposals to reduce barriers to homebuilding, cut taxes, introduce open banking, and reform occupational licensing. “You might say that we haven’t yet reached your purity test, but we are the free-enterprise party,” he said. To be fair, Poilievre has said Canada needs more airline competition and has called its telecom an oligopoly.

But Poilievre isn’t about to ask Milei to borrow his chainsaw. The reason: He mostly wants to make Canada’s economic model work better, not overturn it. For example, Poilievre hasn’t embraced the Canadian Competition Bureau’s proposal last year to allow foreign ownership of up to 100 percent in airlines that fly only in Canada. (Air Canada and WestJet have 56 to 78 percent of all domestic passenger traffic at major Canadian airports.)