Shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone: As PM, Stephen Harper's economic performance is a bust!
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July 31, 2015One of the most effective ways to keep a population quiet and obedient is to deprive it of information.
As a result, it should be reasonably safe for me to just report on
the study released yesterday by two
Unifor
economists, Jim Stanford and Jordan Brennan, straight up as if I were a
mainstream media stenographer rewriting a corporate press release.
That's because the comprehensive review of the performance of the
governments of Canada's nine prime ministers who lasted longer than year
since the end of the Second World War shows that Stephen Harper's
Conservative government is an absolute bust, a flop, a dismal failure … (
Thought you said you were going to report this straight up -- Ed.)
"Canada's economy has never performed worse, since the end of World
War II, than under the present Conservative government," the two
economists say in
Unifor's press release, which by yesterday evening appeared to have been covered by
no one
in the mainstream media. (By the wee hours of this morning, Toronto
time, a reference to the report seemed to have shown up only on a
publication called
Canadian Labour Reporter, plus in a post
on Rabble by Stanford himself. The Globe and Mail? The Toronto Star? The National Post? The Canadian Press?
Nada.)
Well, maybe they'll write something today. So let's give the
professional journos their due -- they're busy writing up their
advancers about Harper's transparent effort to game the system, the
early-early election call many pundits are predicting will come on
Sunday. Why would citizens need to know anything about the country's
actual economic performance on the eve of an election when the government's misleading claims about the economy will dominate the debate?
"The Harper government ranks last among the nine post-war
governments, and by a wide margin -- falling well behind the second
worst government, which was the Mulroney government of 1984-93," the
economists said.
Brian Mulroney. Remember
him? The prime minister so bad he
effectively reduced the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to two
seats and thereby paved the way for the reverse hostile takeover of
Canada's conservative political movement by the Republicanized Reform
Party led by neoliberal ideologue Preston Manning.
The report by Drs. Stanford and Brennan also shows that the excuses
trotted out by Harper's government to back up its claim Canada's economy
is "the envy of the entire world" are completely at odds with the
facts.
For example, you can't blame the 2008-09 recession, as Harper's
supporters like to do, at least if you go by what other prime ministers
have had to face since 1946. There have been 10 recessions in that time
frame, and "the recovery from the 2008-09 downturn has been the weakest
of any recovery since 1946."
The researchers looked at 16 indicators of economic performance,
grouped into three broad themes: work, production, and distribution and
debt. The list includes measures traditionally emphasized by business
types and other traditionally emphasized by social activists. Combined,
they argue, the 16 indicators are a fair representation of the most
common economic concerns and priorities of Canadians across the
political spectrum.
In 13 of the 16 indicators, the researchers found, "the Stephen
Harper Conservative government ranks last or second last among all
postwar prime ministers. And its average ranking across all 16
indicators is by far the worst."
As prime minister, Harper's performance ranked the worst or second
worst for job creation, the employment rate, labour force participation,
youth employment, job quality, economic growth, living standards,
non-residential real business investment, growth in real exports,
productivity, personal income (a tie with Jean Chretien), income
inequality, and household debt (a tie with Mulroney). He came sixth of
nine for unemployment, by the way, so Harper's performance is not
exactly stellar even when it's not dead last.
The oft-repeated claim Canada is a world leader also turns out to be
bogus. Canada's growth among advanced Western nations is in the bottom
half and, the researchers predict, will likely get worse this year.
"This statistical review confirms that it is far-fetched to suggest
that Canada's economy has been well managed during the Harper
Government's time in office," the report concludes. It has the worst
overall economic performance of any government since the end of the
Second World War, a superlative record of the sort a country shouldn't
want its government to have.
What went wrong? Since 2011, unconstrained at last by minority
government status, Stanford and Brennan argue the Harper Government has
lost its way, implementing brutal fiscal austerity, emphasizing
market-driven trickle-down policies and relying on consumer spending to
drive the economy.
When oil prices collapsed, our manufacturing sector had already been
hollowed out thanks to years of neglect, and the prime minister's
Alberta-centric dream of Canada becoming "an energy superpower" was
blown to smithereens.
Back in the day when I was a real reporter, rewriting press releases
for money instead of just for fun, we probably would have run a story
like this -- albeit deep in the newspaper -- with appropriate commentary
from folks who could be depended upon to disagree, like the government
itself, other Conservative politicians and maybe a spokesperson from a
right-wing think tank or two. One of them could have argued some of the
social measures don't belong in the study.
No more. Nowadays, while the drivel pumped out by the press agents at
the Fraser Institute is copied and published without a critical word,
the analysis of a PhD economist educated at places like Cambridge
University and the New School for Social Research is not reported at all
if it makes a strong case the government's pre-election propaganda is
pure fantasy.
Stanford's and Brennan's study is called
"Rhetoric and Reality: Evaluating Canada's Economic Performance Under the Harper Government." But if verifiable facts are published in a vacuum, can they be described as political reality?
Perhaps to get the media's attention they should have published a Top
Ten List -- or, in this case, Top Nine, since the researchers excluded
two of Canada's 11 prime ministers since 1946, Joe Clark and Kim
Campbell, seeing as they held that office for less than a year.
Here they are, the Big Nine, based on their economic performance, from best to worst:
1) Lester Pearson
2) Pierre Trudeau
3) Louis St-Laurent
4) Jean Chretien
5) John Diefenbaker
6) William Lyon Mackenzie King
7) Paul Martin
8) Brian Mulroney
9) Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper, dead last, and apparently proud of it.
Sheesh!
This post also appears on David Climenhaga's blog, AlbertaPolitics.ca.
