The continual and growing dispute among the premiers and the two major federal parties over whether the country has come down with a bout of the dreaded "Dutch disease" is the greatest threat to Canada's continued prosperity.
A report released this week by the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy indicated that while the country has a touch of the disease, it is far from fatal and should have no long-lasting impact on the country.
That is if politicians stop using this issue as a weapon to beat each other up.
The essence of politics in Canada is that political protagonists use every tool at their disposal to dig up, pick at and widen every natural fissure in the country. This debate over Dutch disease is a classic case. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said this week he has no beef with the West and isn't shilling for more votes in Ontario and Quebec at the expense of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Then he went on to exaggerate the impact resource development, which is occurring primarily in the West, is having on Canada's economy.
Premier Brad Wall barely allowed the ink to dry on the newspaper reports of Mr. Mulcair's comments before he called a press scrum to refute the NDP leader. Using selective data from the IRPP study and a recent Statistics Canada report that indicated manufacturing was actually increasing in Canada, Mr. Wall pointed out the West was actually saving Canada.
Neither response is helpful.
The IRPP study found 25 of 80 manufacturing sectors were damaged by the way resources have been driving up the dollar, but those 25 are among the most labour intensive in the country. It is fine to speak from Saskatchewan, where the Conference Board of Canada suggests unemployment will be dropping and economic activity will be growing among the healthiest in the nation, but for those premiers who see unemployment rising and fear changes to employment insurance will require their citizens to leave in order to collect benefits, the world isn't so rosy.
It must have occurred to Mr. Mulcair by now his "Dutch" argument is too thin to keep him afloat. That doesn't mean he doesn't have ground to stand on if he makes a case for some action, for example by having Ottawa redirect some of its resource revenue, as suggested by the IRPP study, to invest in infrastructural and other activities that bolster the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector as a whole.
And western provinces would be well-advised to increase the amount of their share of the booty to diversify their economies for the inevitable day resources hit the skids. Mr. Wall and Mr. Mulcair should take counsel from Saskatoon-Humboldt Conservative MP Brad Trost, who told the House of Commons Wednesday: "Canadians are all in this together, regardless where we come from, our interests are interlinked."
We are all in this together and unless we start pulling together as a country instead of using one region's fortune against the other, we risk watching it all slip out of our grasp.
The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper's editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.
Original Article
Source: the star phoenix
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A report released this week by the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy indicated that while the country has a touch of the disease, it is far from fatal and should have no long-lasting impact on the country.
That is if politicians stop using this issue as a weapon to beat each other up.
The essence of politics in Canada is that political protagonists use every tool at their disposal to dig up, pick at and widen every natural fissure in the country. This debate over Dutch disease is a classic case. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said this week he has no beef with the West and isn't shilling for more votes in Ontario and Quebec at the expense of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Then he went on to exaggerate the impact resource development, which is occurring primarily in the West, is having on Canada's economy.
Premier Brad Wall barely allowed the ink to dry on the newspaper reports of Mr. Mulcair's comments before he called a press scrum to refute the NDP leader. Using selective data from the IRPP study and a recent Statistics Canada report that indicated manufacturing was actually increasing in Canada, Mr. Wall pointed out the West was actually saving Canada.
Neither response is helpful.
The IRPP study found 25 of 80 manufacturing sectors were damaged by the way resources have been driving up the dollar, but those 25 are among the most labour intensive in the country. It is fine to speak from Saskatchewan, where the Conference Board of Canada suggests unemployment will be dropping and economic activity will be growing among the healthiest in the nation, but for those premiers who see unemployment rising and fear changes to employment insurance will require their citizens to leave in order to collect benefits, the world isn't so rosy.
It must have occurred to Mr. Mulcair by now his "Dutch" argument is too thin to keep him afloat. That doesn't mean he doesn't have ground to stand on if he makes a case for some action, for example by having Ottawa redirect some of its resource revenue, as suggested by the IRPP study, to invest in infrastructural and other activities that bolster the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector as a whole.
And western provinces would be well-advised to increase the amount of their share of the booty to diversify their economies for the inevitable day resources hit the skids. Mr. Wall and Mr. Mulcair should take counsel from Saskatoon-Humboldt Conservative MP Brad Trost, who told the House of Commons Wednesday: "Canadians are all in this together, regardless where we come from, our interests are interlinked."
We are all in this together and unless we start pulling together as a country instead of using one region's fortune against the other, we risk watching it all slip out of our grasp.
The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper's editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.
Original Article
Source: the star phoenix
Author: -
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