Holiday Season Notes

I like many Canadians have been following the media reports of the global financial meltdown, but as can be expected, my concerns are centred around the impact that we will feel here at home. Clearly, the manufacturing industry is in trouble in Ontario. The mines, forest products, oil sands, and other commodity based sectors are feeling the economic impact, and job losses are beginning to mount. When these cornerstones of our domestic economy are being devastated, the service sector, and small business are going to be dragged along for the ride.

The Federal Government, along with Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec are now on the verge of a deal to provide a bailout for the holders of Asset Backed Commercial Paper. I am uncertain how this will, or even if it has an impact on my personal situation. I do not pretend to understand all of the economic and financial issues that are being delivered to us on a daily basis. It is clear however, that there are a significant number of Canadians who are suffering at least some degree of financial loss as a result of this debacle.

I am more than a little concerned about how these problems are being dealt with, particularly at the Federal level. I understand the need for the rescue plan for the auto makers. I do not fully understand the issues surrounding the ABCP deal. I am certain however that this whole mess is the direct result of the government's abdication of its responsibilities with regard to the regulation of the financial industry. The impression I get from what I have read, is that although the collapse of the world economic order was triggered in the U.S. and no country will escape the fallout, ours included. The deregulation of the financial industry and acceptance of laissez-faire capitalism, as a government economic policy, has allowed some sectors of society to live very well indeed ,at least on a superficial level, for the last dozen years or so. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak, many people, most particularly the working, and middle classes, are being hit hard by the downturn. Everyone can see this, even though some in politics will not admit it publicly.

All of that being said however is little more than hindsight, water under the bridge as it were. In the flurry of bad news that has cast a pall over this Holiday Season, I want to know what is going to be done to prevent this from reoccurring in the future? Beyond the current minority government throwing the voters under the economic bus in order to cling to power by proroguing Parliament, and the sight of our political leadership squabbling in public, Canadians have little to look forward to in the New Year, with the exception of more promises of bad news.

Where, and when will controls be put in place to curb the financial damage, either through negligence or outright fraud, that has been perpetrated on Canadian workers and investors? Our politicians are elected to provide leadership. Our government ought to be providing regulation, and control over the economy. Business and industry, in addition to providing jobs also has a role to play in the economic well-being of the country. It is unseemly that they go to the taxpayers for bailouts, while looking for tax cuts for corporations while laying off those self-same taxpayers who are supposed to be providing the bailouts. The brand of capitalism that has been the norm in recent years, can not continue, any more than the form of communism that was practiced in the Soviet Union. Both systems were inherently flawed. It is time for Canadians to hear from their elected leaders,with their proposals for the way forward. I for one will be voting for more, and stricter regulation and a system that offers stability and an economic future for the citizens of Canada.