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Breaking Free of Neoliberalism: Canada's Challenge: What it will take to deal with American decline, inequality and the climate crisis
Neoliberalism – free market capitalism and the view that “freedom” is society’s highest value – has become embedded in the fabric of Canadian government and society.
Neoliberal theorists, marginalized for decades after the Second World War, saw their ideas embraced by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who implemented their policies in the 1980s and 90s. Neoliberalism arrived in Ottawa with the Mulroney government in 1984, and has continued as widely accepted common sense about government until today.
Neoliberalism’s basic tenets – reduce public services in favour of privatization, cut taxes to benefit business, demonize government deficits, limit government regulation and enable corporations to self-regulate – continue to be promoted by its corporate champions and think tank advocates.
Yet the experiences of the last decade in Canada and internationally have demonstrated the emptiness of neoliberalism and demonstrated the crucial role government plays in society. Challenges – from financial market crises to the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change – underscore how vital government action can be in our lives.
ALEX HIMELFARB offers proposals about how Canada can break free from this crippling set of ideas about how the world should work.
ALEX HIMELFARB has served Canada in many capacities. He is former senior clerk of the Privy Council, Ambassador to Italy, Director of the Glendon School of Public and International affairs, a founder of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, and chair of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Neoliberal theorists, marginalized for decades after the Second World War, saw their ideas embraced by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who implemented their policies in the 1980s and 90s. Neoliberalism arrived in Ottawa with the Mulroney government in 1984, and has continued as widely accepted common sense about government until today.
Neoliberalism’s basic tenets – reduce public services in favour of privatization, cut taxes to benefit business, demonize government deficits, limit government regulation and enable corporations to self-regulate – continue to be promoted by its corporate champions and think tank advocates.
Yet the experiences of the last decade in Canada and internationally have demonstrated the emptiness of neoliberalism and demonstrated the crucial role government plays in society. Challenges – from financial market crises to the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change – underscore how vital government action can be in our lives.
ALEX HIMELFARB offers proposals about how Canada can break free from this crippling set of ideas about how the world should work.
ALEX HIMELFARB has served Canada in many capacities. He is former senior clerk of the Privy Council, Ambassador to Italy, Director of the Glendon School of Public and International affairs, a founder of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, and chair of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
240 pages, Paperback
Published September 17, 2024
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July 15, 2025In a word: Disappointing. Himelfarb is an impressive and convincing public speaker, and I have frequently thought he was an effective communicator across different forums, from parliamentary committees to podcasts. Unfortunately, his efforts in this book to chart the development of the neoliberal ideology is rote and uninspired, more like the confused scratching of a plucky undergraduate in Poli Sci 101, rather than the insights one would hope for from not only Canada’s top civil servant, but one who was privy to much of the policy development and meager debate surrounding the jittery implementation of neoliberal policies in Canada.
I struggle to understand how someone can be an effective speaker, but an ineffective writer. This book is full of lazy cliches, and awkward, repetitive phrasing, that distracts and detracts from the actual argumentation happening on the page. This may be an issue with the publisher, but it also does not inspire confidence when there is a factual error/typo in the very first footnote of the book. Was this book written in an afternoon? Is Himelfarb’s son a less domineering editor than his father suggests in the preface? Did anyone at the publisher give this book even a cursory read before printing?
Himelfarb notes he is not interested in writing the “inside story” of his time in government, partly to protect the independence of the public service, and so he limits himself to publicly available sources. The result is a trite, simplistic book that begins as intellectual history of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, moves into the expected chronologies of Reagan and Thatcher, before the warranted And-then-things-also-happened-in-Canada section, and a brief, uninspiring, closing section on what the poor disenfranchised Left should do. Vast stretches of this book follow the pattern of: Here is a book or an idea by a scholar; here is a paragraph summarizing it, and a paragraph summarizing some aspect of its implementation in politics (throughout this book, I was reminded of the advice given to humanities students by sage and elite teaching assistants throughout the ages: Nice effort, but try rephrasing this idea again in your own words). There is so little actual insight from any experience leading Canada’s public service from the top job for three separate Prime Ministers, that I wonder if they printed “CANADA’s FORMER TOP CIVIL SERVANT” on the front of the book for any reason beyond crass marketing. Himelfarb suggests in certain places that he could be relaying interesting thoughts, but chooses not to: “The latter part of the Chrétien years represented a distinct change, a return to the progressive tone of the first Red Book… Why the shift? One can only speculate. The Fact of a surplus after years of deficits? Politics?” (page 118). I’m in agreement that “One can only speculate” on matters like this, but only if that One was not CANADA’s TOP CIVIL SERVANT at the relevant time… My friends and I can, and do, speculate wildly on the causes and motors of the bleak neoliberal reality we live in; however, we're dumbasses who don't know much, and none of us have ever had a chance to talk to a Prime Minister (let alone three of them) about policy in this country...
Lastly, I am left wondering who exactly this book is for. The intellectual history is covered better by most of the scholars and bloggers Himelfarb cites. And for all the rhetoric on the malign effects of neoliberalism, there is shockingly little of any information of the on-the-ground, material impacts of these policies in Canada. I expect this book is largely written for the converted: folks who already read reports from the Broadbent Institute (with pleasure, not trepidation or gnawing fear). The reader likely already knows about these material impacts (unemployment, deaths of despair) in which case they’ve also probably already read better books about the issue. My worry is that someone picks up this book to see what a trusted public intellectual has to say, is not convinced by anything that Himelfarb says is Bad (since he largely does not provide any strong moral or factual arguments to counter), and could instead be swayed to the other side. As he notes throughout, the various monied interests pushing neoliberalism are not wanting for cash or media influence; but the Left is. In this way, I don’t think this is just a bad book, but one that actively works against itself; I think it is much more likely that someone could read this book and come away with an earnest interest in the works of Hayek and his ilk, rather than the reader accepting the moral grandstanding that underwrites much of the reasons that Himelfarb lays out for resisting neoliberalism.
I struggle to understand how someone can be an effective speaker, but an ineffective writer. This book is full of lazy cliches, and awkward, repetitive phrasing, that distracts and detracts from the actual argumentation happening on the page. This may be an issue with the publisher, but it also does not inspire confidence when there is a factual error/typo in the very first footnote of the book. Was this book written in an afternoon? Is Himelfarb’s son a less domineering editor than his father suggests in the preface? Did anyone at the publisher give this book even a cursory read before printing?
Himelfarb notes he is not interested in writing the “inside story” of his time in government, partly to protect the independence of the public service, and so he limits himself to publicly available sources. The result is a trite, simplistic book that begins as intellectual history of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, moves into the expected chronologies of Reagan and Thatcher, before the warranted And-then-things-also-happened-in-Canada section, and a brief, uninspiring, closing section on what the poor disenfranchised Left should do. Vast stretches of this book follow the pattern of: Here is a book or an idea by a scholar; here is a paragraph summarizing it, and a paragraph summarizing some aspect of its implementation in politics (throughout this book, I was reminded of the advice given to humanities students by sage and elite teaching assistants throughout the ages: Nice effort, but try rephrasing this idea again in your own words). There is so little actual insight from any experience leading Canada’s public service from the top job for three separate Prime Ministers, that I wonder if they printed “CANADA’s FORMER TOP CIVIL SERVANT” on the front of the book for any reason beyond crass marketing. Himelfarb suggests in certain places that he could be relaying interesting thoughts, but chooses not to: “The latter part of the Chrétien years represented a distinct change, a return to the progressive tone of the first Red Book… Why the shift? One can only speculate. The Fact of a surplus after years of deficits? Politics?” (page 118). I’m in agreement that “One can only speculate” on matters like this, but only if that One was not CANADA’s TOP CIVIL SERVANT at the relevant time… My friends and I can, and do, speculate wildly on the causes and motors of the bleak neoliberal reality we live in; however, we're dumbasses who don't know much, and none of us have ever had a chance to talk to a Prime Minister (let alone three of them) about policy in this country...
Lastly, I am left wondering who exactly this book is for. The intellectual history is covered better by most of the scholars and bloggers Himelfarb cites. And for all the rhetoric on the malign effects of neoliberalism, there is shockingly little of any information of the on-the-ground, material impacts of these policies in Canada. I expect this book is largely written for the converted: folks who already read reports from the Broadbent Institute (with pleasure, not trepidation or gnawing fear). The reader likely already knows about these material impacts (unemployment, deaths of despair) in which case they’ve also probably already read better books about the issue. My worry is that someone picks up this book to see what a trusted public intellectual has to say, is not convinced by anything that Himelfarb says is Bad (since he largely does not provide any strong moral or factual arguments to counter), and could instead be swayed to the other side. As he notes throughout, the various monied interests pushing neoliberalism are not wanting for cash or media influence; but the Left is. In this way, I don’t think this is just a bad book, but one that actively works against itself; I think it is much more likely that someone could read this book and come away with an earnest interest in the works of Hayek and his ilk, rather than the reader accepting the moral grandstanding that underwrites much of the reasons that Himelfarb lays out for resisting neoliberalism.
January 10, 2026
I thought this book was great at contextualizing the current political and economic crisis' Canada faces. I feel like there's a big chunk of history that's too new to be taught in schools, and that a lot of my exposure is just my parents talking about it. This book was great for filling in the gaps of my knowledge of the culture of politics in Canada for the past 50 years. Himelfarb does a good job balancing examining issues of the past and current day with looking forward at solutions for the future.
January 21, 2025
A concise summary of how we got into our neoliberal cul-de-sac, with some cautiously optimistic thoughts about how we might find our way back out.
June 21, 2025
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the state of our democracy. It is an interesting historical review of how we ended up where we are currently. It ends with a call to action about what can be done to support a return to a more socially democratic community and country.
September 22, 2025
I would not recommend reading this book for the following reasons:
- a lack of original ideas: the author quotes widely from other authors who have said it before and said it better
- a lack of evidence: the author makes numerous statements, treating them as though they are established facts, failing to cite evidence to back up his claims (other than to quote the statements of other authors, considered as authorities in this field, as evidence - see above point)
- misleading title: 95% of the book reviews the history of neoliberalism elsewhere and, to a lesser extent, in Canada but only about the last 10 pages deal with what it would require for Canada to break free of neoliberalism employing only very general ideas which have been elucidated before (again, see my first point) yet are undeveloped in terms of their practical implications for Canadian politics, economics and society
A disappointing read. Coming from someone with such a rich experience of the federal government, I expected more than this.
- a lack of original ideas: the author quotes widely from other authors who have said it before and said it better
- a lack of evidence: the author makes numerous statements, treating them as though they are established facts, failing to cite evidence to back up his claims (other than to quote the statements of other authors, considered as authorities in this field, as evidence - see above point)
- misleading title: 95% of the book reviews the history of neoliberalism elsewhere and, to a lesser extent, in Canada but only about the last 10 pages deal with what it would require for Canada to break free of neoliberalism employing only very general ideas which have been elucidated before (again, see my first point) yet are undeveloped in terms of their practical implications for Canadian politics, economics and society
A disappointing read. Coming from someone with such a rich experience of the federal government, I expected more than this.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews