Canada’s Finance Minister is Lost

I have often thought to myself over the past few months that Jim Flaherty has no idea what he is doing as federal Finance Minister.

As a man that stated that Ontario is the “last place” people should be investing, one would think that as the low point in his post as the man behind the money. These words coming from a man that Ontarians had so much contempt for he had to run with his tails between his legs from the same provincial office. Today it got a whole lot worse.

The Globe and Mail came out with comments by Flaherty that makes one’s head spin.

Read full article here:
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081212.wflaherty1212/BNStory/Business/home

Ok, after reading that, I am left with the opinion that fear mongering the ‘devastation’ of doing something is a way to get around a significant problem. The Tories have no idea what do it and continue not to plan anything.

This comes on a day where the Globe announced that Michael Ignatieff, the new Liberal leader, has been having meetings with prominent financial minds.

According to Flaherty, any planning at all isn’t necessary. We are still in a position to do very well weathering this storm according to the article linked above. WHAT?

His words here also come a day after the Bank of Canada made statements suggesting that many Canadians may in fact lose their homes in a US-like mortgage fiasco. But, I mean, those are only foreclosures and people’s homes, right? Maybe Flaherty is banking on none of them being Conservative voters anyway.

Fact is that the Tories have no idea what they are doing. Those that are going to read this blog will have just as much of an idea.

I also find the last bit of that article quite humourous. Flaherty suggests that handling this economic crisis is not a sprint. Well, he hasn’t even started running. Instead, we have had a Finance Minister who has been on vacation since an ‘illegal’ election was called (Conservatives broke their own fixed date elections bill). That is going to be 5 months.

Those are five months he and the CPC should have been running. Instead, they are going to wait until this last minute to leave the gates and turn it all into what they said it isn’t, a sprint.