Carney’s glacial pace offers little to 1.5 million Canadians unemployed now

By Tom Parkin

October 24th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

From his heights in the stratosphere, Carney is not seeing the 1.5 million Canadians without a paycheque today.

Canadian unemployment rises as participation falls

To the nearly 1.5 million unemployed Canadians, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s assertion yesterday that “despite everything, our economy is holding up” will not feel true and his plan for “generational investment” offer no hope of better times soon.

StatsCan reports that, despite almost no population growth over the past year, 1,494,000 people were hunting for work in September 2025, 160,000 more than in September 2024 and 300,000 more than September 2023.

According to StatsCan’s most recent estimates, Canada’s population increased just 0.94 per cent from July 31, 2024 and July 31, 2025.

“Generational investments” buys time for Carney, unemployed pay the price

All he could offer the student audience yesterday was a plan in his budget next month.

The prime minister’s speech yesterday to students at the University of Ottawa set out the challenges facing Canada, including U.S. tariffs on lumber, steel, aluminum and autos imports. Integration with the U.S. economy has turned from a strength to a vulnerability, the PM said.

But from the stratospheric heights of his plan for “generational investments” the PM gave no indication he has any shovel-ready plan to create jobs next month or even next year.

Many of the “nation-building” projects being promoted by premiers and assessed by the major projects office have multi-year timelines just to determine feasibility and engineering.

His talk of generational investments and his suspect claim the Canadian economy is “holding up” buys time for Carney. But the cost is paid by families that aren’t holding up.

“Buy Canada” plan moving at glacial speed

Carney’s pace in establishing a “buy Canada” framework has also missed the urgency.

The PM rightfully says Canada needs policies to make Canada “our own best customer.” And yesterday he noted only 40 per cent of steel used in Canada is produced in Canada, a situation he rightly said needs to change.

So when will the rubber hit the road? We are now 10 months into Trump’s tariff attacks, and the pace of Carney’s response has been glacial. All he could offer the student audience yesterday was a plan in his budget next month. And then he gave no hint about the timeline for implementation.

Meanwhile, for months Carney has taken heat from steel manufacturers and the Steelworkers Union for allowing U.S. steel to flow into Canada, adding only a 25 per cent tariff and giving many exceptions while Trump’s 50 per cent tariff has effectively ended Canadian steel exports to the U.S.

When Trump cuts into our vulnerabilities Canada needs to staunch the bleeding on a timeline far more vigorous than Carney has thus far shown.

Unemployment is a today problem

To millions of Canadian, the time is now. But the PM’s message yesterday was to deny their urgency and tell them to hang on.

Those who aren’t holding up and can’t hang on need a political opposition capable of injecting some urgency into Carney’s glacial timelines. Our PM needs to be told 1.5 million unemployed isn’t a statistic. And it’s not even just a tragedy for the 1.5 million Canadians without a paycheque.

Sustained high unemployment is a dangerously destabilizing threat to Canada at a moment we can least afford it. Somebody please tell our PM this is a today problem.