Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
As the US goes, so goes Canada. Pretty soon we will substitute US with China. I doubt Canada will ever lead, do you think it will or does?
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Lead what?
Lead the GDP growth amongst the G7 in 2010? We might. It's looking to be the case.
Become a leader in financial services? There's lots of potential there. Toronto is poised to take a lot of the spotlight, especially considering the robustness of the banks and the financial industry even during the global recession.
Lead the way in terms of being one of the best places to live in the world? A few of our major cities often rank highly (especially Vancouver). But it's difficult to compete with a lot of the European cities who often top the charts.
But let's stay on topic: you were implying that government "interference" got in the way of the recession. Canada's own government (a minority conservative government) issued a 2-year stimulus package worth about $35 billion—as a benchmark, our 2009 GDP was approximately $1.3 trillion. While the U.S. package is now estimated at $862 billion, the U.S. 2009 GDP was $14.3 trillion.
So you have stimulus spending in both economies. But you will note that the U.S. package was 25 times larger than the Canadian one, yet the GDP of the U.S. was only 11 times larger. To say there is a big difference would be a fair judgement. However, there are different factors to consider: we didn't have a mortgage meltdown, our banks didn't start evaporating en masse, and our economy is a bit different in terms of the distribution of regulatory practices and government ownership.
There are several factors actually. And this is what I'm getting at. The stability of the Canadian economy is due in part to our more balanced mix of free market economy and government regulation, ownership, and monetary/fiscal policy that is more Keynesian than it is monetarist or supply-side.
That's it in an nutshell. Our recession was less severe and shorter than everyone else in the G7, and it wasn't a fluke. It was a result of a balanced, reasonable, and rational approach to governing our economic system.