🇨🇦 Canadian entrepreneurship in 'sharp decline,' warns think tank

Self-employed Canadians with paid employees dropped 17 per cent since 2005 even as the population exploded by a third. Let that sink in: mass immigration delivered bodies, not builders. Trudeau's decade delivered tax hikes on top earners, a bloated federal payroll that siphoned talent into bureaucratic sinecures, and public shaming of small business owners as tax dodgers. The 2017 Morneau assault on small business taxation and the capital gains flip-flop in 2024 confirmed the message: you are not wanted here.

The result is predictable. Over 32 days lost annually to red tape per business owner, compliance costs exceeding $10,200 per employee, and self-employment collapsing from 16 per cent to 11 per cent of total employment. Canada imported dependents and exported ambition. Now Carney talks big projects and industrial policy while the soil for organic enterprise turns to dust. You can't tax and regulate your way to prosperity, but you can certainly suffocate it.

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