rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

Canada’s Economy Near the Bottom of the Pack

by Jim Stanford

It absolutely amazes me that the Harper campaign is still trying to portray itself as the team most capable of guiding Canada through the stormy economic waters ahead. After all, they were the ones in charge as Canada’s main economic indicators (including real GDP growth, employment, productivity, and trade performance) deteriorated to their worst performance in the last 17 years.

If it had been a left-wing government in charge, you can bet that the corporate media and the powers-that-be would making the government “wear” all this bad economic news. But here we have a crew of free-marketeers who threw caution to the wind, let business leaders and investors call all the shots, and poured gasoline on the fire of an unsustainable resource boom in the form of big corporate tax cuts and a rubber stamp for foreign takeovers. Now that this particular party is coming to an end, you’d think we should hold them accountable.

Instead, however, they point to their market-friendly stance as a signal of their ability to steer through troubled waters. It’s almost as though they’re glad for the downturn in the economy: it gets people thinking less about the environment, and underpins their claim that the economy can’t be trusted to Dion or any of the others.

How convenient that neoliberal ideology allows Harper to duck blame for the current downturn (by invoking their faith that it’s market decisions, not government policies, that determine our economic fate) - whereas if the news was good there’s no doubt they’d be claiming full credit for their pro-active wisdom.

Here’s one especially tasty factoid that further damages Harper’s credentials: The most recent edition of the OECD Economic Outlook (a round-up of economic developments in the major capitalist countries) lists forecast economic growth rates this year for its member countries. Canada is tied for 27th out of the 30 countries considered (tied with the U.S., with expected real GDP growth this year of 1.2 percent). Only Iceland (which has suffered a major financial crisis) and Italy are worse (see p. 239 of the June 2008 Outlook).

The Emperor has no clothes (not even a warm cuddly sweater). Canada’s economic performance under Harper lags both our historical track record, and the performance of our peer countries. This absolutely reflects the government’s hands-off policy stance. All the kinder, gentler TV commercials in the world can’t change the fact that this government’s laissez faire view of the world has significantly damaged our economic prospects for years to come.