You might be reading a bit about the news below shortly
Canada churns out 93,000 new jobs
This isn't a crowing diary at Canada's good fortune versus America's misery, it is to head off the expected right wing spin that will be sure to follow.
It is expected that right wingers will note that the current Prime Minister in Canada is a Conservative. The liklihood is that they will say something to the effect of "you see, conservatism works, liberalism fails".
Let me be the first to advise, that nothing can be further from the truth.
A few facts from history.
A few years back, when Canada was being run by Liberals, the banks decided that they weren't big enough. They wanted to join together and become mega banks (too big to fail). They were being held back by regulations and government intrusion and wanted to break free to become like the BIG BIG banks in the US, Europe and Japan.
They decided, without asking for government permission, that they were going to merge. Canada's five big banks were going to become Canada's 3 banks.
The Liberal Government said "No". They broke up the agreements and told the banks they had to settle with being small enough to effectively serve the Canadian public.
Fast forward a few years.
- The Conservatives under Stephen Harper are now in power. They are sitting on a large surplus budget and a good economy. But unemployment is stuck at just below 7% and won't budge.
The mayors of Canada's biggest cities go to Ottawa and say "hey, how about you take 1 cent from the National sales tax (the GST) and give it to the cities to repair, rebuild and replace their infrastructures? This is desperately needed and will create thousands of new jobs."
Harper says no. He cuts the GST instead by the penny. This is because everybody knows even insignificant tax cuts generate more jobs than stimulus programs.
- The US economy crashes and drags down Canada's with it. Does our fearless leader sping into action? NO.
Riding on a wave of arrogance at having increased his seat total by 20 in Parliment, Harper's first budget ignores the financial meltdown and contains no plans to confront it. Only when the opposition revolts threatening to bring down his new government does he retreat and quickly bring down a new budget that contains - wait for it - STIMULUS programs...The SAME bloody programs the mayors asked for in 2007.
Only now, because he has given the surplus away, Harper has to borrow the money used plunging Canada back into deficit; after we had spent 10 long years getting out of deficit spending.
Canada is succeeding DESPITE the Conservatives, not because of them. Don't let anyone tell you differently.