Harper delivers economic report Monday September 28, 2009
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper will deliver his government’s latest economic update in Saint John on Monday.
The Conservatives’ minority government was able to win approval for its economic stimulus plan in the House of Commons last spring by promising to deliver a series of economic report cards.
The latest update is sure to be watched closely since the government is dealing with the largest budget deficit in Canadian history.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the deficit this year will be more than $5 billion higher than originally thought, moving up to a projected $55.9 billion from $50.2 billion.
Parliament returns to work on Monday with the Liberals threatening a no-confidence vote and the NDP holding the balance of power.
During his speech in Saint John, Harper is expected to talk about the state of the economy and perhaps infrastructure projects ? where money is being spent and how many projects are underway. The Liberals have accused the government of spending only 12 per cent of the $4 billion set aside for immediate job-creating infrastructure projects.
Canadians may also hear more news about measures such as the home renovation tax credit, which has now passed because of a ways-and-means motion that was voted on a couple weeks ago.
Gerard Kennedy, the Liberal’s infrastructure critic, said he wants Harper to provide evidence, not just words, that the government is investing in getting the unemployed back to work.
“We have no real growth taking place in terms of jobs, yet we provided enough funding in the [January] budget for something in the order of 120,000 jobs. We’re down 178,000 jobs since the budget came out,” he said.
With files from The Canadian Press (more…)
Harper delivers economic report Monday September 28, 2009
Posted by businessnewss in businessnewss.wordpress.com.Tags: delivers, Economic, Harper, Monday, Report
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper will deliver his government’s latest economic update in Saint John on Monday.
The Conservatives’ minority government was able to win approval for its economic stimulus plan in the House of Commons last spring by promising to deliver a series of economic report cards.
The latest update is sure to be watched closely since the government is dealing with the largest budget deficit in Canadian history.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the deficit this year will be more than $5 billion higher than originally thought, moving up to a projected $55.9 billion from $50.2 billion.
Parliament returns to work on Monday with the Liberals threatening a no-confidence vote and the NDP holding the balance of power.
During his speech in Saint John, Harper is expected to talk about the state of the economy and perhaps infrastructure projects ? where money is being spent and how many projects are underway. The Liberals have accused the government of spending only 12 per cent of the $4 billion set aside for immediate job-creating infrastructure projects.
Canadians may also hear more news about measures such as the home renovation tax credit, which has now passed because of a ways-and-means motion that was voted on a couple weeks ago.
Gerard Kennedy, the Liberal’s infrastructure critic, said he wants Harper to provide evidence, not just words, that the government is investing in getting the unemployed back to work.
“We have no real growth taking place in terms of jobs, yet we provided enough funding in the [January] budget for something in the order of 120,000 jobs. We’re down 178,000 jobs since the budget came out,” he said.
With files from The Canadian Press (more…)
Harper meets white-collar crime victims August 27, 2009
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Prime Minister Stephen met Thursday with some alleged victims of disgraced financial adviser Earl Jones, pledging his support for tougher laws against white-collar crime.
During his visit to Quebec City, Harper met with several people once connected to Jones, talking about financial crime and related Canadian laws.
Going into the visit, Harper said he’s committed to tougher penalties and sentences but can’t bring about big changes because of his government’s minority status.
“We had legislation before Parliament in the past to remove house arrest for serious white-collar crime, and the opposition defeated the legislation,” he told reporters in the provincial capital.
The victims group asked Harper to “stiffen the laws against white-collar crime, as well as stiffen the penalties and sentences,” said Joey Davis, a spokesman for the group.
Davis said Harper promised to set up a meeting with federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to discuss the issue.
Quebec’s securities regulator alleges that Jones, a Montreal investment adviser, swindled at least 50 investors out of at least $30 million in a possible Ponzi scheme. Jones was granted bail in July after being charged with four counts each of fraud and theft in connection with four former clients.
‘Buy American’ hard to halt: Harper August 15, 2009
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Canadians on Thursday that discouraging protectionist trade policies in the United States might not be a straightforward task.
Speaking at a news conference announcing a new economic agency for southern Ontario in Kitchener, Harper touched on the subject of how Canada could best discourage a growing call for trade protectionism by its southern neighbour.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canadians should be aware that discouraging protectionist trade policies in the United States might not be a straightforward task.(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Protectionism in the face of moribund local economies featured prominently in discussions in Guadalajara, Mexico earlier this week among Harper, U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
There are global fears that the “Buy American” provisions slipped into the $787-billion US stimulus package by the U.S. Congress last February and designed to stimulate job creation in the United States will cut off any nascent economic recovery in Canada at its knees.
Ottawa is confident that an agreement on the issue can be reached, Harper said, but he cautioned that won’t simply be a case of getting a pledge from Obama on the issue.
The Buy American provisions are not “strictly a matter of the White House,” Harper said.
“The provisions we’re talking about apply to procurement by subnational levels of government ? by state and municipal governments in the United States,” he said.
Under NAFTA and WTO rules, agencies below national governments are not subject to the same procurement restrictions. Provincial and municipal governments in Canada have the same rights to employ protectionist policies, and that too is something to be avoided at all costs, he said.
“[But] President Obama indicated an openness to looking at a range of solutions to this problem,” Harper said, so he’s optimistic a solution can be reached.
He cautioned against protectionist trade activities by any and all economies, including Canada’s.
“We are seeing the expansion of these domestic preferences around the world,” Harper said. “China announced a ‘Buy China’ plan as part of its own stimulus package [and] these things, if they multiply around the world, could become extremely problematic in terms of recovery.”
Harper lays out stimulus spending in progress report June 14, 2009
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivers a quarterly update on the government’s stimulus plan during a town hall meeting in Cambridge, Ont. (CBC)Roughly 3,000 infrastructure projects across the country are getting underway as part of the government’s $22.7-billion stimulus plan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday.
That action is “no small feat only 72 days into a new fiscal year,” Harper said in a speech to a town hall meeting in Cambridge, Ont. He added that 80 per cent of the plan’s funding has already been allocated.
Harper did not make any new announcements, highlighting instead a long list of public projects.
“We are on the right course. The only thing that can get us off course now is needless political instability,” the prime minister said.
The infrastructure update is part of a quarterly report on the economy that was demanded by the Liberals as a condition for their support of January’s budget.
‘We are on the right course. The only thing that can get us off course now is needless political instability.’—Prime Minister Stephen Harper
“This represents the largest infrastructure renewal effort in this country in over half a century,” Harper said.
Harper also used the speech to point to changes made to Employment Insurance in the face of a recession. He said the government will spend $5.5 billion more on EI benefits this year.
With the economy performing poorly, the unemployment rate has gone up. In May, the national jobless rate hit an 11-year high of 8.4 per cent.
Canadian unemployment has been rising since it hit its most recent bottom of 5.8 per cent in January and February of 2008.
“I know these are trying times for many Canadian families, those who have been affected, directly or indirectly, by the worst downturn in the world economy in half a century,” said Harper.
Over the first three months of this year, the Canadian economy contracted at an annualized rate of 5.4 per cent — an 18-year low — although that was better than the annualized loss of 6.5 per cent that economists had been projecting.
In the last three months of 2008, the economy shrank at an annualized pace of 3.4 per cent.
The government said the budget deficit will hit $50.2 billion for the current fiscal year, but it will return to a surplus position. However, it did not repeat its earlier timetable of being back in the black in 2013-14.
On May 27, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the federal deficit will soar to more than $50 billion this fiscal year. That means the government’s shortfall will be more than $16 billion higher in 2009-2010 than Flaherty forecast in January’s budget.
The government reported Thursday that more than half the 2009–10 deficit is the result of temporary spending under the stimulus plan, reduced taxes collected, higher EI benefits and the decision to freeze EI premium rates.
The remaining deficit of $23.2 billion is primarily a reflection of the weak economy. The government expects that will be reversed as the economy recovers.
8% jobless rate ‘not good news,’ but not unexpected, Harper says April 10, 2009
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Canada’s employment rate hitting a seven-year high of eight per cent and the economy shedding another 61,300 full-time jobs in March, was not unexpected, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday in Edmonton.
“This is the kind of level of unemployment we were expecting in the budget. That’s why we’ve come forward with the kinds of programs and ? the amount of dollars we have to deal with this ? during this and the next fiscal year,” said Harper, responding to new job data released by Statistics Canada Thursday.
He was speaking at a press conference at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, where he reannounced $2,000 bonuses for people who complete apprentice training, outlined in the January budget.
“Obviously, we’re never very happy about unemployment. All of these increases are causing real hardship to Canadian families. At the same time, we do have good social safety nets and we do have good systems of retraining that we are enhancing.”
Harper reminded reporters that Canada is relatively better off than the United States where he said five million jobs have been lost since the start of this recession last fall.
“That’s what’s pulling us down and we have to see that get turned around,” he said.
He also highlighted his government’s move to increase the employment insurance benefit period by five weeks and hire more workers to process the backlog of EI claims.
Statistics Canada employment chart
Statistics Canada said a total of 79,500 full-time jobs disappeared in March, while employment in part-time work grew by 18,200.
Economists had a consensus projection that the country would lose a total of about 55,000 jobs last month, although some of the forecasts expected a loss of more than 90,000 positions.
Since hitting its most recent peak in October 2008, employment across the country has fallen each month, with net losses totalling 357,000. Statistics Canada said that, in percentage terms, this is the largest decline over a five-month period since the 1982 recession.
Since October, full-time employment has declined by 387,000, while part-time numbers have edged up by 30,000.
The largest declines in employment were seen in British Columbia, which lost 23,000 jobs; Alberta, where 15,000 positions were shed; and Ontario, which lost another 11,000 jobs. The three provinces have the fastest rate of employment decreases since October.
Jobs losses were widespread throughout the economy, with losses in manufacturing, finance, insurance, real estate and leasing, construction and natural resources.
Employment in the manufacturing sector dropped 34,000 in March, bringing the sector’s total losses since October to 134,000, or a drop of 6.8 per cent. Manufacturing has lost the most workers of the major industry groups, Statistics Canada said.
The finance, insurance, real estate and leasing sector lost 20,000 jobs in March. The construction sector had 18,000 fewer workers last month ? the third notable drop in four months ? bringing total job losses since October to 99,000.
‘Deep in the heart of the recession’
Employment in natural resources declined 11,000 in March, led by losses in Alberta, mostly in mining, oil and gas extraction.
“While not quite as horrid as the two prior months, this report leaves little doubt that we remain deep in the heart of the recession, despite some mildly encouraging results on other fronts in recent weeks,” said BMO Nesbitt Burns economist Douglas Porter.
“For a change, there really were no major surprises in the details, and the results are fully consistent with the setbacks seen south of the border. The good news ? such as it is ? is that the job losses are not accelerating, and may even be starting to lighten,” Porter said in a commentary.
Another economist suggested there is still plenty of pain ahead on the employment front.
“With employment having contracted 272,000 in the first three months of 2009, we regard this only to be around the half-way mark for 2009 job losses, which we estimate will total over 520,000,” said TD Bank economist Grant Bishop.
“We still expect losses, albeit at a slower pace, through the next three quarters, anticipating the unemployment rate will rise to 10 per cent by year?s end. There is still much pain ahead and, along with the hard-hit export sector, job losses have now infected domestic sectors.”
Harper credits regulations for preventing bank bailouts March 30, 2009
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Canada has achieved a balance in the regulation of its banks that will serve the country well once the global economy begins to recover, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an interview Sunday with a U.S. television network.
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace pointed out that Canada’s relatively tough banking regulations mean no Canadian banks have needed a bailout, but he asked Harper if he was worried that regulation saps the innovation and risk-taking that goes on in a freer market.
Harper said it’s fine to say that countries should have less regulation in principle and less intervention in the marketplace, but that approach can mean more intervention.
“It’s led us to a situation where the government is, in fact, intervening massively as a consequence of under-regulation and where we now have, effectively in many countries, nationalization of the financial system,” the prime minister said.
“I know in Canada there have been some criticisms in the past that we were perhaps too [much of an] activist, intervening too much, but we’re emerging from this probably with the only truly free market financial system in the world,” he said.
Harper said Canada has a “pretty decent balance” where the government doesn’t try to micro-manage financial systems.
The interviewer also asked whether Canada, as the only western nation that has had no bank bailouts during the economic crisis, believes U.S. President Barack Obama should be doing more to police financial institutions.
Harper responded by saying he believes the Obama administration does want reforms in the financial sector, something Canada will be recommending at this week’s G20 meeting in London.
The prime minister made the comments while in Washington, where he was giving media interviews ahead of the summit.
Canada and India are co-chairing the G20’s working group on the reform of financial regulations.
Harper wants member countries to commit to a broad series of reforms to increase transparency in the financial sector.
Brace for a big, ‘comprehensive’ budget: Harper January 10, 2009
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The government may have to take “big comprehensive action” over the next three to five years to deal with the economic crisis, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday, adding that the next federal budget will be one of the biggest in a long time.
“We’re going to work on the assumption that this is going to be a tough time, that we should not underestimate the actions we need to take,” Harper said at a news conference in Montreal. “We’ll take big comprehensive actions.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives at a press conference on Friday after meeting with business leaders in Montreal.(Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)
Without getting into specifics, Harper said the actions could last between three to five years.
“It won’t necessarily be that long, but we’re not going to underestimate the situation. We’re going to do whatever is necessary.”
Harper said the government has been involved in heavy consultations leading up to the tabling of the budget on Jan. 27.
“This will be one of the biggest budgets in a long time, it will be a comprehensive budget to deal with a range of economic ? not just economic problems and challenges ? but also some economic opportunities.”
Harper’s comments came as Statistics Canada reported Canadians lost 34,400 jobs in December, a figure that was worse than economists had been expecting, as the economy weakened.
While Harper said the numbers are “troubling” he said the job losses being incurred in the U.S. are a lot worse.
The U.S. economy shed 524,000 jobs in December, pushing overall job losses for 2008 to 2.6 million.
“Certainly the numbers in the United States, in particular, are very bad, continue to get worse,” the PM said.
3 budget tests: Ignatieff
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, speaking in Halifax, said he will judge the federal budget on whether it provides tax relief for low-income Canadians, infrastructure projects and invests in productivity and competitiveness.
Ignatieff, who spoke in Halifax as part of a town hall tour across the country, has said he’s prepared to vote down the Conservative government and form a governing coalition with the NDP if the budget isn’t in the best interests of Canadians.
On Thursday, Ignatieff had said he would consider speedy tax cuts for the poor, infrastructure projects and changes to the employment insurance program if he were prime minister.
Ignatieff’s town hall tour will also include stops in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Montreal.
Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion December 20, 2008
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper, far right, watches as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivers the government’s fiscal update in the House of Commons on Nov. 27.(Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)A federal economic stimulus package will likely lead to a deficit in the $20-billion to $30-billion range for the 2009-10 fiscal year, a Prime Minister’s Office official told CBC News on Thursday.
Hours after the announcement, Harper confirmed in a television interview that the Conservative government was planning to take unprecedented action to stimulate the country’s economy.
?Some people are talking in the neighbourhood of a five to 10 billion dollar deficit. Our own assessment is frankly that will not be sufficient given the challenges we’re facing,? Harper told CTV News in a year-end interview.
?I think what will be more realistic in terms of the kind of stimulus our economy is going to need is going to be in the 20-billion to 30-billion dollar range.?
The figure includes the $5-billion deficit the Finance Ministry projected on Wednesday for the next fiscal year, the CBC’s Rosemary Barton reported from Ottawa.
It also includes funding for the planned $3.3-billion auto-sector bailout, as well as unspecified amounts for forestry, housing, job retraining and infrastructure investment, the senior official said.
The new numbers are a stark contrast to the surplus projections of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s economic statement, tabled Nov. 27, and show how quickly the government’s perception of the economy has been changing.
In November, the government foresaw surpluses of $800 million in 2008-09, $100 million in 2009-10 and $100 million in 2010-11. Those were to rise to $1.1 billion in 2011-12, $4.2 billion in 2012-13 and $8.1 billion in 2013-14.
On Wednesday, the Finance Ministry posted an update of Flaherty’s economic statement on its website that issued new budgetary projections based on fresh private sector forecasts. They indicated deficits of about $5 billion for 2009-10 and $5.5 billion for 2010-11.
“The level of nominal GDP is expected to be about $20 billion lower in each of the next two years. This suggests that revenues will be weaker than projected in the November statement,” the update said.
Tories ‘in deficit denial’ for weeks: opposition
On Wednesday, Flaherty acknowledged that Canada can’t withstand the turbulence in the global economy.
He said three factors are affecting the economy: falling world GDP; an American recession, which the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research officially recognized on Dec. 1; and a drop in commodity prices.
But the opposition parties said it’s about time the finance minister admitted what they’ve known all along.
“Finally, they’ve come up with the truth,” Liberal finance critic John McCallum said. “They’ve been in deficit denial for weeks or months, and they’ve known this all along that there was a deficit.”
New Democrat MP Thomas Mulcair said the change in the figures means Flaherty has lost his credibility.
“Is there a problem or isn’t there?” Mulcair said from Montreal. “Of course there is, but he’s been denying it up until now and no one believes him anymore.”
While still projecting a small surplus for the current fiscal year, Wednesday’s update said that the “budgetary balance for the next two years would be about halfway between the average and low scenarios set out in the economic statement.”
Although the updated documents discuss specifically those two fiscal years, their charts suggest there would also be deficits for 2011-12 and 2012-13 of around $4 billion and $1 billion, respectively.
The government won’t see a surplus until the 2013-14 fiscal year, the update chart suggests.
The deficits are forecast to occur even if the government proceeds with billions of dollars in asset sales and cost cutting that it has proposed. The projections also don’t take into account any money spent for a stimulus package to boost the economy.
The federal government hasn’t run a deficit since 1996-97. In the 2006-07 fiscal year, Ottawa’s surplus hit $13.8 billion.
With files from the Canadian Press (more…)
Budget deficit ‘essential’ if economic stimulus needed: Harper November 23, 2008
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes his seat at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, on Saturday.(Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)
Budgetary deficits may be an inevitable reality for countries intending to use financial stimulus packages to revive their economies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Saturday.
During a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru, Harper suggested the Canadian government will introduce a stimulus package to boost the economy while trying to avoid setting the stage for a long-term government deficit.
Signalling a shift in his usual anti-deficit stance, he acknowledged that countries that choose to implement fiscal stimulus packages will likely find it necessary to run budgetary deficits.
“We did agree at the G20 [summit in Washington] last week that additional fiscal stimulus should be used to sustain global demand if monetary policy continues to prove to be inadequate,” Harper said in Lima.
“These are, of course, the classic circumstances under which budgetary deficits are essential.”
It was an about-face for the prime minister, who in the lead-up to last month’s election dismissed the possibility of a deficit, saying they were addictive and out of the question for Canada.
Harper said Saturday that whatever short-term new spending his government pursues, it “will ensure that Canada does not return to long-term structural budgetary deficits.”
Trade barriers opposed
His comments came as the 21 leaders at the APEC summit pledged to invoke a 12-month moratorium on new trade barriers in an attempt to stabilize the global economy
“We reiterate our firm belief that free market principles, and open trade and investment regimes, will continue to drive global growth, employment and poverty reduction,” the statement says.
“There is a risk that slower world growth could lead to calls for protectionist measures which would only exacerbate the current economic situation.”
The statement comes on the heels of a broad plan adopted by leaders at last weekend’s G20 summit in Washington, and goes one step further by pledging not to impose additional economic trade barriers in the next 12 months.
Leaders also pledged to reach agreement next month on the outline of a World Trade Organization pact that collapsed in July after seven years of negotiations. Concern over the global financial crisis injected new urgency into the so-called Doha round of trade talks.
Harper also used his speech to send a message that a freer trading system is the best way to restore global economic prosperity, saying the world is entering an economic period that is “potentially as dangerous” as anything the world has seen since 1929.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was not caused by a stock market collapse but by government policies and protectionist trade barriers that followed the crash, Harper said.
He criticized policymakers of that time for allowing the banking sector to contract and deflation to take hold, then trying to manage the problem by balancing government budgets instead of providing financial stimulus.
Unprecedented prosperity
“Notwithstanding our current difficulties, the prosperity generated around the world in the last part of 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st century, has been unprecedented in history,” Harper said.
“Removing protectionist barriers and easing trade restrictions was a big factor in ushering in this extraordinary era. ?We cannot allow ourselves to turn back.”
Countries around the world should be “vigilant” against the rise of protectionism as they grapple with their slowing economies, he said.
Canada is committed to “pursuing mutually beneficial economic relations with like-minded nations” around the world, Harper said, pointing to a free-trade agreement signed this year with Peru, as well as a similar, tentative agreement with Colombia, announced Friday night.
“When it comes to Canada’s support of free and open economies and markets, our view is based on the success of our North American partnerships,” he said.
“We took a close and trusting relationship with the United States and we transformed it into the most successful commercial partnership in the history of the world.”
Harper and outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush held a bilateral session earlier Saturday, where they discussed the economic slump, the Detroit-Windsor bridge and Canada’s concerns about new U.S. rules requiring meat and fresh produce to be labelled by country of origin, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The Canadian livestock industry has complained it is being hurt by U.S. labelling rules.
Harper and Bush also reflected on the work they’ve done together, with the prime minister saying there were many things the two had agreed on and a few they hadn’t, but that Bush was always willing to listen.
For his part, Bush called Harper a good friend and a strong leader.
With files from the Canadian and Associated Press (more…)
