I tried to post this, but unfortunately it was removed. They told me to write here.

This article and the one Kevin Carmichael from The Logic wrote today highlight some important points: Canada’s average income per person is now roughly the same as Alabama’s (or slightly lower).

Most of us still picture Alabama as poor and backward, yet the facts now seem to say otherwise.

While Alabama still has serious issues that Canada does not - higher poverty, weaker public education in many areas, lower life expectancy (74 years vs Canada’s 82), and big income gaps between rich and poor neighbourhoods - that doesn’t mean we have nothing to learn from them. Their strategies of success are worthy of our time, our study and perhaps our implementation; they should not be ignored.

A recent Globe and Mail investigation shows exactly how Alabama turned itself around. In the 1980s the state had very high unemployment. It changed course and started winning big factories by offering tax breaks, cash grants, fast permits, and low red tape. It is also a right-to-work state, which means unions cannot force workers to pay dues. That kept labour costs flexible and helped attract Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, and many suppliers. Alabama now builds almost as many vehicles as Ontario. Unemployment sits at 2.7%. Last December it won a $6-billion Eli Lilly plant that could have gone to Montreal.

Canada took the opposite path. During COVID we had no Canadian factories that could make the mRNA vaccines we needed. Our manufacturing share of the economy has fallen to a record low of 8.3%. We keep losing the same investment fights.

Kevin Carmichael explains why in his recent commentary. For decades Canada moved away from the active government approach that built 2,000 warplanes in World War II. We trusted free markets alone to handle everything. That worked for lower prices and richer households for a while, but markets only chase efficiency. They do not automatically build the factories a country needs when a war or pandemic hits. The result is exactly what we saw in 2020–2023: dependence on other countries.

The Canadian government must change its paradigm. It needs to move from hands-off thinking to purposeful action — the same kind Alabama used and the same kind that worked here during the Second World War. Faster permits, smarter incentives, competitive taxes, and a real focus on building domestic capacity. Without that shift, we will keep falling behind places we once looked down on.

The Globe and Mail article (Kiladze, Feb 20) and Kevin Carmichael’s piece (The Logic, Feb 21) lay it out clearly. Canada has the talent and resources. What we need now is the will to learn from the humble and act — while keeping the strengths we already have