Trump is a political distraction

The Media Focus: Trump Over Trudeau’s Fiscal Record

By Justa Low-level Blogger, Canadian Sentinel

While Donald Trump has never led a government north of the 49th parallel, you wouldn’t know it from reading most Canadian news headlines. Scroll through the daily media feed and you’ll find the former U.S. president front and center, dominating coverage with his latest tariff views.

Meanwhile, ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s economic record — a record that includes doubling Canada’s national debt since 2015 and running chronic deficits in times of peace and growth — gets a comparative free pass. The media spotlight seems fixed firmly across the border, while our fiscal ship takes on water. The role Prime Minister Carney (unelected) played in fiscal policy during the Trudeau era is ignored.

This isn’t just a matter of editorial preference — it's a public disservice.

If you believe Canadians deserve better than economic mismanagement and media distraction, share this op-ed, talk to your neighbors, and ask your MP what they’ve done to protect your future, not their pension.

A Fiscal Record Worth Covering

Canada’s debt has ballooned from approximately $600 billion in 2015 to over $1.3 trillion today. Debt servicing costs are now projected to surpass $54 billion per year, more than the entire national defense budget. Inflation has eaten away at savings, housing affordability is at crisis levels due largely to a failed immigration policy. Yet most Canadians remain far more familiar with Trump’s latest soundbite than their own government’s financial trajectory.

The media focus is no accident

This is not accidental. It is intentional distraction. A media class heavily subsidized by the federal government — to the tune of $600 million in direct support — seems far more comfortable feeding daily doses of Trumpian outrage than scrutinizing Ottawa’s economic choices. The same media that breathlessly repeats polling data showing growing Liberal support often fail to cover the public turnout at rallies, town halls, or protests that suggest growing dissatisfaction. This disconnect fosters apathy. Why bother voting if “the polls” already say your vote won’t change anything? But history teaches us that polls don’t elect governments — people do. And people are waking up.

The Real Comparison

If we're going to compare Trump and Trudeau/Carney, let’s talk policy, not personality. Whatever his faults, Trump reduced regulations, cut taxes, and presided over a booming economy until COVID struck. Trudeau, on the other hand, increased spending, expanded bureaucracy, and borrowed heavily through both boom and bust, often with little to show for it beyond slogans and photo ops. Carney was his key advisor during this period. don't forget, this is not just about Trudeau.

If any foreign leader doubled their nation’s debt while paying the media and weakening the currency, our journalists would call it authoritarianism. In Canada, it’s just Monday.

As the next federal election approaches and economic pressures mount, Canadians need real journalism, not recycled press releases or Trump clickbait. Our financial future is being mortgaged by leaders who face too little scrutiny and too few hard questions.

Let’s stop outsourcing our outrage to Washington and start paying attention to the damage being done in Ottawa.

Time to refocus

The last thing the Liberals want to focus on is their fiscal record. They also want you to forget that Mark Carney was the architect. Justin Trudeau, while he presents nicely is no financial genius, remember he thinks budgets balance themselves.

Trump is not running for office in Canada, and in spite of his attention grabbing should have little to no real effect on our economy. He got everyone's attention with his warning shots, but his claims of annexation and huge tariffs were just his way of making a deal to the benefit of his country.

The truth is, as much as we want to blame Trump for our economy, it is our own failed leadership that is to blame. Keeping our natural resources in the ground and away from world markets, leaving us dependent on the USA as our only customer for oil and gas, was none of Trump's doing. Runaway immigration was none of Trump's doing. Runaway deficits were none of Trump's doing. The Canadian housing affordability crisis was none of Trump's doing, nor was our devalued dollar.

No, the state of the Canadian economy is due to years of failed fiscal policy. By incompetence or malicious intent will be a matter for history to decide.