Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, join Brian for a powerful and eye-opening conversation with Paul Smetanin, President and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis. Paul introduces the concept of “Ponzinomics” — his term for how Canada has treated infrastructure spending as a political prop rather than a long-term economic necessity. He explains how decades of under-planning and short-term announcement politics have left our country worse off than Mexico when it comes to infrastructure certainty, costing us $600 billion in lost economic potential.
Together they explore why housing starts are at a 30-year low and what this means for young Canadians, how infrastructure delays can erase up to $144 billion in potential benefits, and why housing in Ontario is uniquely taxed at 36% of its value. They even touch on what systemic changes from a national infrastructure plan to multi-year funding and transparent ledgers could turn things around. Don’t miss this candid discussion on why Canada’s infrastructure and housing crisis is a matter of intergenerational fairness and how we can start fixing it.
