The Great Escape

that's what we should be calling Canada's flitting brush with the recession according to this article. The Harper government's arm was twisted into ploughing all that stimulus money and even if we had spent only about 50% of the $46 B that was pumped into the economy, we would have still arrived today at the same results. The rest was good money down the drain to stop the tantrums from the opposition.

In most of the world it's still known as The Great Recession, but in Canada it may go down as The Great Escape. While the rest of the world reeled from an economic and financial tsunami that threatened to spiral into the worst disaster since the 1930s, good policies and good planning appear to have sheltered Canada from the worst the downturn had to offer.

Statistics Canada's official report on the 2008-2009 slump shows it was a most ordinary recession in Canada, in fact, even milder than the two previous economic dips.

Exports fell, more than 400,000 jobs were lost and company profits plunged, but it could have been so much worse, the agency concludes.

"I think you can make a good case it was the Great Recession in Japan and probably the U.S. ... it just doesn't apply here," said Philip Cross, the federal agency's chief economic analyst. For some economists, the findings have rekindled the debate about whether the federal government was wise pumping $46 billion into rescuing the country from what turned out to be a normal slump. ......