Thursday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- David Olive reassures us that we're not in a depression, but points out plenty of other reasons for concern with Canada's economy:

Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, tried to slap down Peggy Nash, the NDP finance critic, in the Commons earlier this week by accusing her of “badmouthing” the economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had just downgraded its forecasts of Canadian GDP growth — from 2.8 per cent this year to only 2.1; and to a mere 1.9 per cent next year from an earlier forecast of 2.6 per cent.

If Nash is badmouthing the economy, then so are the IMF and David Rosenberg. Spitting on the messengers doesn’t change the fact that for the almost 1.4 million Canadians who are unemployed, we are indeed in a depression. And that about one million children in this country are living in poverty.

Our jobless rate, at 7.3 per cent, remains higher than the 6.0 per cent of October 2008, when the Great Recession began. And Canadian household debt is at near-record levels, as the income of middle- and working-class Canadians has continued its 30-year stagnation.

- Speaking of which, Lawrence Martin wonders why the standard of living for most Canadians has indeed been stagnating for decades. And it's not hard to see what other factors seem to feed into the lack of progress:

The question Canadians should be asking is not how we stack up against others, but given our resource riches and other advantages, how we measure up to our own past standards.

In an essay in a newly published academic text, University of Dalhousie economist Lars Osberg provides an answer. We stack up dismally. From 1950 into the 1980s, hourly wages grew at a good rate as did living standards. From then on growth has been “pitifully small,” he says.

“For roughly thirty years, the average real hourly wage has hardly changed in Canada and the national unemployment rate has simultaneously been high by Canadian standards. This stagnation of real hourly wages is historically unprecedented.”
...
The conventional wisdom is that the economic record was dismal under the Trudeau government. In the 1970s, western economies suffered through oil price shocks and stagflation and Canada sufffered as a result, posting a huge deficit by the time Trudeau left office in 1984. But by comparison to later years the record wasn’t so bad. Living standards grew nicely through Trudeau’s governance and the percentage of Canadians living in poverty dropped from 23 percent in 1968 to 13 percent in 1984.

In the post-Trudeau period, education levels increased, Osberg notes, and baby boomers entered into their most productive years. But growth numbers flat-lined anyway.
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A rate of seven percent, considerably worse than in the old Canada, seems fine (to the Harper Cons). In the new Canada of stagnant living standards it’s the new normal.

- Jesse Brown is one of many celebrating the omission of lawful access from the Cons' omnibus crime bill. But Michael Geist warns against declaring victory too soon.

- Finally, the Star-Phoenix editorial board takes notice that Saskatchewan's urban voters are poorly served under the province's current electoral boundaries. And it's worth noting that they seem to have been prompted by Brian Topp, who's also pointed out the follies of the Keystone XL pipeline.