Friday, July 31, 2015

There's Nothing "Technical" About Five Consecutive Months of Economic Contraction

After seven consecutive deficit budgets, Sideshow Steve Harper can go to the polls adding a recession to his economic achievements.

The Canadian economy has contracted for five consecutive months and even the Harper-friendly Globe & Mail reports that suggests we've slipped into a recession.  Really, ya think?

Don't sweat it. This sort of thing happens to minor petro-states all the time. Sure Steve could blame it all on OPEC's oil price war but that would mean blaming Riyadh, the House of Saud, and they just inked a $15-billion order for Canadian armoured, democracy-suppression/Shiite extermination vehicles so he won't want to ruffle their keffiyehs.

And, as for that balanced budget Furious Leader wanted to contrive before Canadians go to the polls, that's pretty much over.  Oh, I know, let's just dissolve Parliament in time to make that whole budget business go away.

Here's an idea. Let's make the election a referendum on Mulcair's secret plans to drag Canada back to the 19th century.  Hell we've only had two prime ministers with beards - Alexander Mackenzie and Mackenzie Bowell, a stone mason and a printer respectively.



Look how long Canada has struggled to remain prime ministerially beard-free. Why should we betray our ancestors' sacrifice and throw out a century of progress now?

3 comments:

Owen Gray said...

Progress? Steve wants to re-establish a resource economy. It's back to the 19th Century.

Ron Waller said...

Mulcair is the only leader who stood up against Harper's and Trudeau's gambit to bet the entire economy on exporting resources to China. This is the premise behind his Dutch Disease argument: that investments in resource extraction and resource exports cause an overvalued dollar that kills manufacturing and tourism (value-added exports.)

Trudeau believes China is the "future of the Canadian economy." He's also a big supporter of FIPA and the TPP. As he put it: "For me, it’s either we set the terms [with China] now and take the lead role, or 20 years down the line, we’re the poor cousins who accept any deal thrown our way."

If Canadians want real change, the only choice is the NDP. (The Green party platform is based on the same neoliberal economic ideology as Preston Manning's EcoFiscal Commission. This anti-social green is founded on gouging the little people while giving the rich big tax breaks: "raise consumption taxes; cut harmful income taxes.")

Anonymous said...

Anyong said....The fact remains most countries around the world have a drop in their economy and are calling it what it is, a recession. Why does Harper think Canadians don't know this? Thank the powers that be, for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which Harper hates. A question that needs to be asked of your party of choice, what are they going to do to reinstate the CBC as a highly viable entity as it was up until 1998?