Blind-Sided by the Global Economy

Canada still is performing in a far superior economic climate than other countries in the G-8, although we too have been hard hit by the global financial collapse. Job losses continue to mount, but they are not and likely will not be in the same stratosphere as what was experienced in the 1990s. The manufacturing jobs that have evaporated to other countries of the world where wages are incomparably lower will return in large part once energy prices begin to soar again.

Real estate in Canada has not experienced a collapse anywhere resembling what has occurred in the United States and other developed countries. Canada's banking industry is still coming up with quarterly gains. Loans are easier to acquire, the government has mounted a stimulus defence, and we are gradually turning around, back to economic health. The whopping debt that Canada has incurred represents a far smaller portion of GDP than that of the U.S.

Once recovery is underway and normalcy is attained as it will, before too much longer, government finances will be strengthened and it will be in a position to wipe out the deficit through a series of surpluses. The call for government to hang its head in shame, to fire its finance minister, for an election to take place so the challenging Liberals can take their rightful place at head of government is shameful.

Simply because that kind of hypocritical opportunism is of no benefit to the country. Simply because that kind of brittle, brash partisanship divides unnecessarily at a time when the country should be seeing solidarity among its parliamentarians in such a time of national stress. The Liberals demanded that the Conservatives take positive stimulus steps, and this is precisely what the Conservatives have done, albeit of their own volition.

A Liberal-led government would have reacted to the automotive crises, in tandem with the Liberal provincial government in exactly the same way that the Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done. Now, at this time of tight financial stress, the Leader of the Opposition has launched an employment insurance debate, handily overlooking that it was a Liberal government that put the current EI in place to begin with.

And hoping the public won't notice that the Conservatives are altering employment insurance to enhance benefits for those that qualify. So it's a tedious and tiresome nuisance to hear Michael Ignatieff righteously say: "I'm trying - God knows it's hard - to make the Parliament of Canada work because that's what Canadians want, but on three issues it is getting more and more difficult.

"The first issue is EI. Second point, the stimulus is not out the door ... and third, the public finances are in free fall and he can't tell us where the bottom is. On these three grounds, it's getting very difficult to work with the government." Actually, the Liberal Party has made no effort to work with the government, and clearly has no intention of doing so.

His first issue is being addressed in a responsible manner. On the second point, the Liberals made issue of the fact that they expected stimulus funding to be carefully monitored to ensure that everything would be above-board, and nothing wasted. The bureaucracy is attempting to do just that, and, alas, it takes diligence and time.

As for the third issue, it's fairly universal, internationally, that all the financial experts globally, neither before the collapse (to foresee the calamity-in-waiting), nor now, have been able to distinguish where the bottom is. Does Michael Ignatieff claim to have been blessed with the wisdom of divination denied all others?

We'd all be a whole lot better off, if he would busy himself learning how to be a responsible parliamentarian and get on with being a part of the government, usefully.