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The economic indicators might say one thing, but the human indicators say something entirely different

“Two-thirds of Canadians either feel they can’t pay their bills, or feel they have nothing left over at the end of the month after they do,” he observed. “Nearly 50 per cent of all Canadians report being overwhelmed by their debts.”

“The economic indicators might say one thing,” he averred. (Liberals might point to things like record-low unemployment and poverty rates, for example.) “But the human indicators say something entirely different.”

“Trudeau’s Canada,” he bemoaned, “is one that, despite all our incredible potential, despite the brilliance of our workforce, and despite our natural wealth, is falling behind.”

The Liberal economic record certainly isn’t spotless. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, record-low unemployment has not translated into expected wage growth. Household savings are the lowest in a decade. But conventional political wisdom would say it’s more than clean enough for Canadians not to dismiss a first-time prime minister four years after promoting him from opposition to leader of a majority government. That’s only happened twice in peacetime: to Alexander Mackenzie in 1874 and to R.B. Bennett in 1935. In both cases they had been battling savage economic depressions. That’s a big challenge for Scheer.

The economic plan he laid out Thursday, in hopes of adding Trudeau to the list, contained few surprises: scrapping the carbon tax, ending corporate welfare and getting the oil sands humming again with a streamlined regulatory process, an end to the B.C. tanker ban, a willingness to flex federal muscle when needed, and “a dedicated, coast-to-coast right-of-way specifically set aside for energy infrastructure projects.” The latter, a new idea from Scheer, would “minimize environmental impacts, lower the costs of environmental assessments, increase certainty for investors, and, most importantly, get these critical projects done,” he said.