As someone who has spent years inside government and seen how budgets are built, I know how hard it is to move a complex system toward real reform. There are competing priorities, limited time, and endless negotiations. At long last, this year’s federal budget at least concedes an important truth: Canada has a productivity problem and must start building again. But after naming the illness, Ottawa prescribed more of the same medicine — higher spending, rising debt, and a government still convinced it can spend its way to growth.

When we launched Build Canada less than a year ago, our goal was simple: to put forward practical, growth-oriented ideas and help governments focus on removing barriers to building. Canada’s growth problem is not theoretical. It is a slow bleed of competitiveness, a decade of weak productivity, and an economy increasingly powered by government spending rather than private investment. Yet instead of confronting these challenges with focus and restraint, Ottawa continues to double down on the same formula of more programs, more promises, and more public debt. It still believes prosperity can be managed from the centre rather than built from the........

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