Trump-style revolt brewing in Canada, says think-tank head

The leader of a Canadian national think tank says the same socioeconomic troubles that led to the Donald Trump presidency in the United States also exist in Canada, and could lead to a similar populist uprising north of the border.

Problems linked to unemployment, immigration and urban elitism are emerging in Canada, said Brian Lee Crowley, the managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a right-wing think-tank named after two early Canadian Prime Ministers.

"You cannot help but feel that anyone drawing hard and fast distinctions between Canada and the U.S. is missing something vitally important," said Crowley in an presentation this week at a downtown Vancouver hotel for the Commercial Real Estate Development Association - an organization of developers, investors and brokers.

Crowley said that outside of Canada's big metropolitan centres like Vancouver and Toronto, smaller, working-class cities are losing their industries such as auto plants, factories and mills. He said of particular concern is the Alberta oil industry, which has shed tens of thousands of jobs in recent years.

He said one of the biggest issues that threaten the fabric of Canadian society is urban development, which has been hindered by strict zoning rules by cities that are preventing higher-density housing. Vancouver and Toronto are among the most expensive cities in the world for housing.

"Zoning and other laws other land use restrictions are drying up the supply of housing and reducing the growth rate of the city, reducing the opportunities for commercial development, and that has very significant economic and political effects," he said.

Like in the U.S., a rural-urban divide is emerging with blue collar workers unable to access housing and opportunities in big cities, he said.

"There's a self-selection going on where only wealthy people can go there, and only people with high skills - and those people only see people like themselves, only talk to people like themselves, only hear from people who have the same preoccupations like themselves," he said. "That's why I think they became so blindsided by what Trump represented."

Canada, portrayed as having an open immigration system, actually has a very controlled immigrant program, Crowley said, noting that the U.S. faces large numbers of illegal immigrants not experienced yet in Canada.

"I can say with some confidence that if we had anything like a comparable level of illegal immigration in Canada, let's say 1.5 million - using the usual ratio of 10-1 when comparing the U.S. and Canada - it would be a national scandal that could easily cause the fall of governments."

It's becoming clearer that the conditions for a Trump-style populist revolt is brewing, but so far, "no (Canadian) political leader has emerged who can turn this latent discontent into political action" , he said. Enditem