A Frank Assessment

Pollster Frank Graves offers this assessment of the state of the public's attitudes to their economic prospects.  Increasing pessimism begs many questions.  One that comes to my mind is how Canadians are going to react if the Liberal government's happy talk and moneybags financing fails to produce results.  But this is the risk we decided to take to rid ourselves of the  Harper gang's distorted interpretation of Canadian values.

Make no mistake:  we are on a course that we freely chose.  We will have to see it to its logical conclusion.  The odds seem to have changed since election day October 19, with the collapse of energy prices and the relative value of the dollar.  But the world has a way of offering unexpected new opportunities.  So hang on and enjoy the ride.

Meanwhile, we need to ask how we can insulate ourselves if global market forces turn out to be too resistant to the  Keynsian bargain.  The question for individuals is this:  does it make sense to abandon ourselves to deficit financing just because we've chosen that option collectively?

This University of Calgary analysis of public attitudes seems to line up with the facts.  Consumer-driven economic theory is creating fortunes at the top of an increasingly hierarchical heap, while the rest make do with the small money.  If Canadians are already pessimistic, will we continue to mortgage ourselves to the future, especially if  Justin's "beau risque" turns sour?

The message of this study seems to be that Canadians no longer buy into  right-wing economics any more than they did the expediency and ethical lapses of Harper's approach to governance.  Right-wing economics plays itself out most vividly in America.  The broken promise of "trickle-down" prosperity seems to be driving the campaigns of the most ardent iconoclasts.  You  have to wonder what  lesson Canadians are taking from that circus spectacle.  

          

Justin's Faery Dust Dims

It's somehow fitting that our new prime minister is tying Canada's future to the "fourth industrial revolution" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.

Klaus Schwab in 2012

Just four years ago Davos co-founder Klaus Schwab astonished observers with his keynote remarks at the opening of the 2012 gathering of world political leaders and businessmen.  At the time, we posted a blog item that we called a placeholder in the Conversation of a Generation.  That was because we frankly didn't  know what to make of Professor Schwab's assertions that capitalism, in its present form, has outlived its usefulness.

The professor's analysis came on the heels of the Occupy Wall Street movement that caused people to question the sustainability of the gulf opening up between the economically disadvantaged and the crony capitalists who are killing their own golden goose one big slice at a time.

This time Justin Trudeau is the keynote speaker, an acknowledgement of his miraculous political upset of Stephen Harper only three months ago.  With the global economy sliding toward the brink of the unknown,  organizers undoubtedly felt that some boosterism might help. 

 Trudeau rose to the occasion  with the pitch that "My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources.  I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness."

Neil Nails It

It took CBC correspondent Neil Macdonald to rein in this show horse: "prime ministers have to cheerlead; they all do. But Trudeau's ... happy talk is beginning to sound a bit detached from certain realties that the unimaginably important heavy-hitters in Davos are probably quite aware of".

In other words, enough of the faery dust already. When Trudeau gets back on Canadian terra firma there are real issues to be addressed with more than incantations of diversity, cooperation and inclusivity.  It's time we had more to tell our partners in counter-terrorism who didn't invite Canada to the NATO conference on that subject this week.  Provinces and municipalities deserve a better sense of how the government plans to deliver its infrastructure commitments than Trudeau's standard reminder of how many 'just  folks'  he listened to while he was wandering in the political wilderness as leader of the third party.   

Leave it to Neil to state  the obvious:  "... we must all have internalized that there is value in diversity, and that we must work together as Canadians, and that we are an incredible, wonderful, virtuous place."

"We also have problems, though. Time to get at them, no?"