Armine Yalnizyan doesn’t necessarily follow the crowd when it comes to her economic analysis — she said as much at a recent CSA Policy Pathways conference in Toronto, focused on building a thriving Canadian economy. Yalnizyan discussed the first-ever budget from Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and her critique, she admits, is a bit “weird.”
But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Yalnizyan has been a frequent guest on TVO programs over the years and is probably the country’s most prominent progressive economist as the Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers. That puts her at odds with many of the country’s more establishment economists, not to mention the current prime minister and his finance minister.
She discussed global economic trends she’s been watching for decades. “The rise in protectionism didn’t happen overnight,” she said, “and it didn’t start with Donald Trump.” She said we entered an era of what she calls “me-first politics” more than a decade ago with Trump, Russia, and Brexit.
“It’s all about protecting my interests,” she continues. “You’re not the boss of me. So, you fight. You break things. Your rules don’t apply to me. Lying becomes normalized.”
Needless to say, Yalnizyan doesn’t like to see politicians lie. “It’s a helluva time to be a decision-maker,” she adds, “because people don’t trust governments to steer and row at the same time after 40 years of market economies.”
Yalnizyan thinks it’s all well and good to try to diversify our trading markets but notes it may take a very long time to turn that phenomenon around. Three-quarters of our trade is with the United States and only 5.6 per cent with the United Kingdom, 5 per cent with the European Union, 4 per cent with China, and 1 per cent with Mexico,
Armine Yalnizyan speaks at the CSA Policy Pathways conference. (Steve Paikin)
This is where Yalnizyan introduces her economic approach, one few others seem to be championing. “It’s stupid not to incorporate the care economy in our budgeting,” she says. “It’s the foundation and economic engine of our economy.”
What does she mean? Consider education, child care, health care, and long-term care. Combined, those sectors make up a massive share of the Canadian economy, which Yalnizyan calls the care economy. “It’s all about the care, nurturing, and maintenance of our bodies. It’s one-and-a-half times bigger than manufacturing. It’s two times bigger than housing. And it’s three times bigger than mining, and oil, and gas.”
Yalnizyan is frustrated when she hears experts talk only of the housing crisis or the difficulty building a new pipeline, while the care economy continues to be ignored.
“Twenty-one per cent of our jobs are in the care economy,” she continues. “No one talks about it that way. We talk about oil and gas all the time, but what about this sector that makes or breaks your life?”
The numbers are downright alarming. More than half a century ago, she says, there were roughly 6.5 young people in Canada for every old person. That was a strong foundation of workers paying taxes and supporting the Canada Pension Plan. A decade ago, that number dropped to four young people for every older Canadian. Yalnizyan estimates that by the year 2036, there’ll be only two young people for every older Canadian. “That’s the worst dependency ratio in 60 years.”
She notes that the federal budget massively increases military spending (“pure leakage to the United States"), which amounts to more than the federal government intends to spend on health and education.
Yalnizyan says the federal government should increase transfer payments for health and education, which go to the provinces. Her argument is not purely altruistic, but practical. Improvements in these sectors could have an enormous impact on improving women’s productivity, for example, since women do the lion’s share of unpaid care. “You want women to be distracted?” she asks. “The status quo is a sure-fire way to reduce women’s productivity.”
Conversely, she says, as the population ages, “we’ll buy less stuff and more non-profit services. Future demand will be more non-profit driven.”
Yalnizyan also says Canada is on the wrong track when it comes to immigration. “We’re angry at immigrants today, which is crazy!” she says. “Our falling birthrates and shrinking economy require more immigrants. We need an urge to surge. We can’t keep using the same old playbook.”
Yalnizyan concludes we’ve been trying the same old pro-market, less-government approach for four decades and the result has been a greater concentration of wealth and power, more protectionism, worsening climate change, and more war. She notes a democratic socialist candidate just won the mayoralty in New York City — and even Trump just rolled out the red carpet in the Oval Office for Zohran Mamdani.
“Maybe that’s the pivot point we need,” says Yalnizyan, who doesn’t sound like someone who’s about to give up the fight.
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