Could Canada’s prime minister be on to something?
While emphasis at the G8 summit has so far been put rather heavily on things like a possible second round of stimulous spending and renewing aid to Africa, prime minister Stephen Harper seems to be taking a bit of a different course. He’s already said he believes we should be more patient than Obama and Brown want to be, and not rush into a second round of stimulous spending. On top of that, he plans to pull resources out of Africa and focus on Latin America for reasons of trade. He’s also a little more than hesitant when it comes to stimulating or reforming the world bank or the IMF, though that’s more than likely got a lot to do with the fact it would probably just be throwing Canadians’ money away, seeing as Canada has very little to do with that–an advantage of the fact our banks are on less shakey ground than those of the US and europe.
The Globe and Mail rightly pointed out, in quoting a recognised speaker of the house, that all politics is local. And that’s exactly how it should be looked at, whether or not you’re speaking at a world summit. Canadians can’t aford a second stimulous–there are those who would most likely argue we couldn’t aford the first one. And that’s why even the more left-leaning media is reluctant to criticise Harper for acting precisely how it’s expected he’d act–conservatively.
While it does mean he’s at odds with Barack Obama and gordon Brown on what may be advertised as key issues at the G8 summit, right now more than at any other time, his primary concern needs to be focusing entirely on what would be best for Canada. Unemployment is still sitting above 8%, we still haven’t gotten a definite stopping point for this constantly increasing debt, and little if any of the first round of stimulous dollars has actually been translated into actual in-progress projects. Until that does happen, and the results of that translation become available, we shouldn’t be throwing even more money at what right now is still a rather large questionmark. For all the positives Obama brings to the table–and there are a lot of positives, to be sure–a money problem, which is what this recession really amounts to, more than likely won’t be fixed with more money. One doesn’t need to be an economist to know that.
