U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance is drawing attention for an X post wherein he blamed Canadian political leadership for the country’s economic stagnation, citing mass immigration and leftist ideology as root causes.
“While I’m sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into ‘diversity is our strength’ immigration insanity than Canada,” Vance posted on Friday. “It has the highest foreign-born share of the population in the entire G7 and its living standards have stagnated.”
The comments came in response to a chart circulating online from IceCap Asset Management that showed Canada’s inflation-adjusted GDP per capita has failed to recover post-pandemic, falling behind both the United States and the United Kingdom. The chart, covering 2016 to 2025, shows that Canadian living standards have remained flat since 2020, in contrast to steady gains in the U.S.
“What happened in Canada will be studied by many historians and economists as the prime example of self-destruction of an otherwise prosperous nation after blindly following left ideology,” the original tweet read, which Vance shared.
Vance went further, accusing Canadian political discourse of deflecting blame.
“With all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame. The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you,” he said.
Vance’s remarks come amid rising scrutiny of Canada’s economic trajectory, particularly following the April 2025 election that saw Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney maintain the decade-long rule of the Liberal party.
Vance’s boss, U.S. President Donald Trump, took partial credit for Carney’s victory following the April vote.
“He won a very big election,” Trump said at the time. “I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him.”
