This was not a good weekend for those in Canada who suffer TDS. They made Sunday’s hockey match with Team USA all about politics and Canadian pride. The trash-talking turned to trash-eating. But I do congratulate Canada on its two silver medals in hockey—female and male. Maybe if we make it a best of the 57 genders tournament, Canada will beat Team USA.
Remember, not all Canadians suffer TDS. Sane Canadians realize it’s just a game they usually win. The last time the USA men’s team won was The Miracle on Ice. In all, Canadian men have 9 men’s team gold medals. The USA has 3.
What really shocked Canadians is the realization that 49 of the 50 states are better off than Canada financially. They accept that America in whole has a better economy. What galls them is that those southern states are better off. The TDS crowd believes slavery is still alive in the SEC states.
In 1970, Neil Young released Southern Man with such lyrics as:
I saw cotton and I saw black men
Tall white mansions and little shacks
Southern man, when will you pay them back?
I heard screaming and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?
He heard bullwhips cracking? How old was he then? 150? He later released Alabama, a song that continued his virtue signaling. Ronnie Van Zant heard enough. He co-wrote Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama and settled the matter.
Young said decades later in his autobiography, “My own song Alabama richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue.”
Last week, the Toronto Globe and Mail posed the question, “Out Of Nowhere Canada Became Poorer Than Alabama. How Is That Possible?”
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The headline was changed to an answer, “How Canada became poorer than Alabama.”
But the article itself focused on how Alabama became richer rather than how Canada became poorer. That’s because the last thing a newspaper in a capital city wants to do is criticize socialist government programs. Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post is another example. It would be like the Coal Valley News in Madison, West Virginia, suddenly promoting nuclear power.
What do you expect from a newspaper that blames a skier’s failure on the snow?
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The other skiers somehow managed the heavy snow. Logic is not the newspaper’s strong suit.
In this highly amusing Globe & Mail story, Canadians are stunned to discover that Alabama is not the dirt poor hillbilly backwater they think it is. They’re totally gobsmacked when they learn Alabama’s per capita GDP had edged higher than Canada’s. Canadians could probably stomach having their living standards slip relative to the broader U.S., the epicenter of the world’s tech revolution. But Alabama?
Or as Richard DeCamp tweeted, “Canada exports its great comedians to the world and saves the mediocre ones for domestic politics.”
The Toronto newspaper reported, “Huntsville, in the north, is the home of the Saturn rocket program that took on the Soviet Union’s Sputnik. It houses the second-largest biotech research hub in the United States. And it has attracted high-end manufacturing investments such as Blue Origin’s rocket engine plant.”
Thanks to a congressman, a senator and Wernher von Braun, Huntsville, an Appalachian town that billed itself as the Watercress Capital of the World, became Rocket City.
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In 1941, Congressman John J. Sparkman and Senator J. Lister Hill pushed the Army to put its Chemical Munitions Plant in Huntsville. Then they pushed to have von Braun and other German scientists re-located to what is now Redstone Arsenal.
It was a pork project, sure, but the nation needed a Rocket City, so why not build it in Huntsville?
Huntsville grew from a population of 16,000 in 1950 to 215,000 on 2020. It is still growing because it is more than rockets.
The newspaper story said, “Eli Lilly and Co. was looking to build a $6 billion manufacturing plant that would create 3,000 construction jobs and employ 450 engineers, scientists, lab technicians and operations staff. After narrowing down the field of 300 bidders, the pharmaceutical giant named Huntsville a winner, one of four new facilities in the U.S. It’s the state’s largest-ever private industrial investment, and it personifies the tagline the Mayor has preached: Huntsville: a smart place.”
And Alabama is more than Huntsville.
The story said, “The state’s unemployment rate is now just 2.7%, versus 6.5% in Canada, and its major employers include Airbus SE and giant defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. The state has also morphed into an auto manufacturing powerhouse with plants from Mercedes-Benz AG, Toyota Motor Corp., Hyundai Motor Co. and more. In 2024, Alabama made nearly as many vehicles as Ontario.”
Alabama attracts top management by offering them more.
The story said, “First, the U.S. simply pays more for many senior white-collar jobs, and top personal tax rates in Alabama [combined with federal taxes] can be around 40%. Today, they’re 53.5% in Ontario. The size of the U.S. economy is also breathtaking—and companies make decisions faster.”
The newspaper then disparaged Alabama’s income inequality. But as Europe and Canada pursue income equality, their economies flatten.
Meanwhile, the United States continues to enjoy prosperity because it doesn’t treat billionaires like knaves. Eight of the richest men in the world call the United States home. America has 902 billionaires.
Canada has 76. Adjusted for population, the USA has twice as many billionaires as Canada does.
The newspaper made an odd comparison, “Per capita GDP also doesn’t reflect social values. Canada has a high rate of unionization, which many people love. Meanwhile, Alabama has a total abortion ban except in dire health scenarios.”
Alabama is one of 26 right-to-work states that do not allow union dues to be mandatory.
As beloved as unions and abortions may be to Canadians, the newspaper said, “Last fall, there was an uproar in Ontario because Stellantis NV, the automaker, said it would shut a plant in Brampton, Ontario. The timing, tied to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff regime, dominated headlines. But what got lost is that Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, is now a very expensive place to live, with an average detached home price of $1.05 million. The union that represents Stellantis workers has to fight for higher wages, and that makes the plant less profitable for the company.
“Think about it from a CEO’s vantage point: If workers in Canada are more expensive, they should provide value over and above what a newly-trained—and cheaper—work force in Alabama can offer, especially considering there is now also an entire auto parts supplier network in Alabama and a major port nearby in Savannah, Georgia, that’s bigger than any in Canada.”
“To Canada’s credit, it isn’t exactly standing still.”
Its prime minister announced Canadians will soon be building cars for Red China. He is willing to turn his countrymen into Igloo Uyghurs.
The newspaper downplayed the GDP per capita comparisons, stating, “Canada’s [population] soared by two million people in 2023 and 2024. That’s much faster than the equivalent U.S. growth rate on a percentage basis. It takes time for all these newcomers to start materially boosting GDP and offset their drag on the per capita number.”
So why are Canadians allowing all those people in who are a drag on society? Poverty is a choice. Sudden success takes time, energy and commitment. Alabama is an overnight success 80 years in the making.
Unable to deliver on the economy, Ontario Premier Doug Ford allowed bars to open at 6 AM on Sunday for the big game. He said, “Let’s all come together, support local businesses and cheer on Team Canada!”
His bread and circuses through beer and a hockey game failed to deliver the thrill of victory. Meanwhile sweet home Alabama, where the skies are so blue, got sweeter.
This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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