By Mike Archer. Terrence Corcorran of the Financial Post has asked some pointed questions about how the Canadian government and the Bank of Canada didn’t see the current economic crisis coming.
His questions are important, not only so that we can figure who didn’t do their job, but so that we can put someone in those jobs who knows what they are doing.
Many commentators have pointed out that the plummet in the price of oil was obvious for anyone paying attention to the glut of supply and reduced demand.
It has also been pointed out that the Canadian economy needs more than a small number of rich Albertans and foreign-owned oil companies to sustain itself.
One of the other gifts this government has given Canadians is a dearth of reliable data or information on which to make decisions. Not only has Harper ignored and silenced the scientific community he has gutted Statscan and destroyed its ability to collect reliable data.
This government’s inability to accurately tally and report on the number of jobs in the economy is mind boggling and a direct result of Stephen Harpers’ allergy to facts.
As the 2008 economic collapse began to unravel, the newly minted Harper government was on the verge of deregulating our banking industry so that Canada’s banks could gorge themselves on … wait for it … derivatives. As the collapse engulfed all but the Canadian Banks in its wake, Harper pulled back and took credit for a banking system he had been on the brink of destroying.
He then went on a spending spree advertising a non-existence recovery plan and took Canadians back into deficit. While the government could have done something to restructure and rebuild the manufacturing industries which keep the economy going during the long stretch between oil booms, this government preferred to believe that Alberta would lead us to the promised land of prosperity on a rising tide of dirty oil.
Now what?