Stephen Harper has failed as an economic manager. Our economy has deteriorated under his leadership, and we are likely to enter recession with the United States.
The economic and financial meltdown in the US is being caused by the same policies that Harper is forcing through in Canada: deregulation, privatization, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, increasing inequality, cuts to public services, and inadequate public investment. Stephen Harper has no positive vision for how government and the public sector can strengthen the economy.
What do we want?
- Economic policies that focus on the needs of ordinary Canadians, not corporations.
- A national plan to reduce poverty and increase the federal minimum wage.
- Progress in reducing the wage gap between men and women.
- Balanced economic measures that strengthen manufacturing, forestry and the public sector and make us less dependent on the exploitation and exportation of oil, gas and other raw materials.
- Investment in skills training to help laid-off workers find decent jobs again.
The average Canadian is falling behind
- The cost of living in Canada has increased by more than 7% since Harper came to power.
- Average wages have increased by less than the rate of inflation: this means most workers have had no increase in their real wages for the entire time Harper has been in power.
- In Harper’s first two years, CEO salaries increased by more than 50%.
- One in ten Canadians lives in poverty and the federal government has no anti-poverty plan.
- Harper has done nothing to protect pensioners and investors from fraudulent financial scams.
- When Harper arrived in office, the economy was growing at a healthy rate of 4.2% a year. This year it will be down to less than 1%—the slowest rate of growth since the 1991/92 recession.
- Canada’s productivity—the efficiency of our economy—has actually declined under Harper.
- For each day Harper has been in office, an average of 200 manufacturing jobs has been lost.
