Tuesday July 14, 2015
Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 14, 2015
Harper says Canadian economy in ‘downturn’ due to negative global trends
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the government will react with “strong fiscal discipline” to the “downturn” in the Canadian economy, which he blamed on the recent turmoil in the global economy.
“Let me just state clearly what the situation is, there has been a downturn and the reason for that has been the downturn in the global economy,” Harper said in Pickering, Ont.
“It’s really that simple. Look around the world, we have another crisis downturn in Europe, we have a very significant slowdown and some other related economic problems now in China, we had very negative first quarter growth in the United States.
“So those things have obviously affected this country and in particular through oil prices and some commodity prices.”
Harper added that the federal government will not “spiral ourselves into deficit” and face credit downgrades, create an “investment freeze” by hiking taxes on businesses or take away tax breaks to Canadian families.
“Those are things we don’t do,” he said. “What we are doing, is providing strong fiscal discipline with lower taxes and we will have very large scale investment going into the Canadian economy this month alone through the increased universal child care benefits.”
Harper said that the outlook for the Canadian economy is favourable for the rest of the year, just days after Finance Minister Joe Oliver said it was too early to tell whether Canada has slumped into a recession. (Source: Toronto Star)