With the massive devastation in Japan, one of the world's largest economies, there are now growing fears of a global economic retraction. So Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper came out and said that right now might not be a good time for an election, which seems to have created a controversy. It might be a bad time to dissolve Parliament for an election, and the Prime Minister's statement is entirely fair. This is not an attempt to benefit from a catastrophe, but rather a reminder that we might want Parliament in session for the next few months. The Conservatives have done a fantastic job of economic management through this last recovery, and I want them at the steering wheel for the next one.
Now would be a really bad time to have Jack Layton as Minister of Finance. By the way, if you did not see the CBC's Lang and O'Leary Exchange on Tuesday, Kevin O'Leary was almost misty eyed about how great a job Flaherty and Harper have been doing. He has even forgiven Flaherty for costing him a lot of money on income trusts. K.O also discussed that whenever there is an economic retraction, there are buying opportunities. I'll wait and see if he's condemned by Mansbridge. Since O'Leary has the best rated show on CBC with Dragon's Den, I'm sure Kevin helps pay Peter's pay cheques.
I haven't seen O'Leary comment on financial matters on CBC Newsworld since a year ago when he was asked for an economic update on something the opposition was railing about and he spoke of the Canadian economy in glowing terms.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the Japanese comment was nothing more than sound advice.
NeilD
Looking the truth in the eye is something the Liberals - Never do.
ReplyDeletePoint number 2 is when they realize they have stepped in it, they never apologize - that's above them.
Thirdly, pandering every which way to win is not above them either but this time, they have overstepped their boundaries.
Say goodnight Libs if we have an election and turn out the lights on your pathetic party.
Liberals are all Iggiot's.
ReplyDeleteThe Liberals always hate it when the PM is right and says exactly what Canadians are thinking. It IS a very lousy time for an election. 300,000 to get rid of their leader and/or shoving an incompetent coalition of losers in our faces.
ReplyDeleteRemember how the media and the opposition mocked PM Harper about the stock market meltdown and the "advice" he gave at the time?
ReplyDeletePMSH: "I think there are probably some great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as a consequence of all this panic."
[from Oct 2008 Globe & Mail article “Harper ‘so insensitive' on economy: Dion” by Bill Curry]
“The Toronto Stock Exchange S&P/TSX composite index closed at 8,987.7 …. [Dec. 31, 2008, from cbc.ca/news/business/story/2009/01/01]
So what happened? Some people may have stopped laughing.
“… patient Canadians hanging on to their investments would’ve benefitted from a two-year 26% appreciation in value of the TSX index …” [from Oct. 2010 NP Don Martin article “Harper stock tip proves prescient”]
And today?
“In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index fared considerably better due to the support from commodity producers. It closed at 13,524.82 …” [from today's theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/]
From a close of 8,987.7 in 2008 to today's 13,524.82 points If my calculations are correct, that's a 66.5% increase.
Yeah, the media and the opposition were right to mock the PM, right?
-- Gabby in QC
Actually, I'm thinking my calculations over -- math was never my strong suit -- I think I may have forgotten a step in figuring out the %.
ReplyDeleteThe increase in the TSX index from 2008 until today may be actually 33.5% -- but I'll leave it to better math students than I was to figure out the actual % increase. The point remains, though. The PM was right, there were some very good buying opportunities.
-- Gabby in QC