Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Money, Money, Money. Flaherty's Not Funny. In His Rich Man's World

The fairy tale continues that Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper have helped us to weather the economic storm. But if you're waiting for the usual 'happily ever after', sorry. This one will end badly.

Canada has hit the magic figure of a 55.6 billion dollar deficit. A new record. The last one was hit by our former conservative government under Brian Mulroney. So why are the Harperites still thumping their chests?

While Ottawa likes to boast about how well our economy is doing, compared with others, the reality is that we are not doing all that well. Indeed, complacency about the challenges we face is a real danger. Here are two reasons why we should be concerned: First, we are not creating the jobs we need to enable Canadians to achieve a middle-class lifestyle. While job numbers have increased, we also have to look at where those jobs are coming from, and their quality.

Second, young people today are having a truly tough time, even if they go to college or university. Too many young Canadians are having to settle for temporary or contract jobs while others cannot find jobs that match their education.

And we've seen net job losses in two of the last three months.

But Flaherty is overjoyed. And the Toronto Star asks: Flaherty’s update: Belief versus reality? They also suggest that he has his head in the sand.

But he's warning of tough times ahead. Just not for the rich as he is still determined to go through with corporate tax cuts.

"Money, money, money ... it's a rich man's world"

MAMA MIA!

No comments:

Post a Comment