CBC Forum: What's the cure for Canada's ailing economy?
Canada's economy is off to a rough start this year. A low dollar, record-low oil prices and global turmoil have all taken their toll. What's the cure for Canada's ailing economy?
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Earlier, someone said they hoped the government was paying attention to the ideas posted here. I'm fairly certain the government is not reading these comments, but they have provided a website where we can submit pre-budget ideas ... www.budget.gc.ca -
Canada has been riven by energy-driven inflation for 45 years because our leadership since Pierre Trudeau's tenure has never insisted on oil and natural gas self-sufficiency before export. And now, Energy East could eliminate the 700K
barrels of oil we import daily, if the line terminated at Montreal refineries. a made in Canada oil price is of national self-benefit -
Why don't we stop letting corporations outsource their production? Protectionism will bring manufacturing back to Canada. Sure, we'll pay more for stuff, but at least that money will stay in Canada. -
Pay every one living allowance, like in Swiss, pay every one livable pension.
Deny immigration for people who cannot contribute. -
Our domestic markets are 75-80 per cent of national output. It is these markets that need to be strengthened, creating decent employment.
The huge US domestic market by comparison likely still constitutes 85 per cent of their economic output. There is a lesson in this for our willfully blind leaders. -
What's terrible about it, notamilleinal?This CBC forum is horrible. Please go back to the drawing board. It's not like the CBC has to invent something NEW, its all out there. Subsidised by the taxpayer for $1.5Billion/year, CBC you can do better, Can't you?
notamilleinalat 4:10 PM -
What a perfect time, The federal Government wants to spend and the world wants to be carbon free. Couple that with low rates and rising unemployment and you have the perfect environment for a large project that changes the direction we are moving in.
I say build a Nuclear Power plant in Alberta! -
I think we need the immediate action of some stimulus spending. Additionally, in the shorterm, add tax incentives were Canadian jobs are created, (we have fare taxes, which now are simply extra profit) or were direct benefits to our economy are clear. As a course correction start focussing on our small to medium sized corporations, work from the bottom-up, top down is a failure. Additionally a refinery, selling ourselves refined fuel at global marke rates is not a bad idea.
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They should lower the retirement age and get some of old foggies out of the work force and get the young people working.
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The keyword here is CHANGE. Change expectations (we have lived beyond our means for decades), Change spending (we have to go thru a period of nil economic growth in order to pay off our country and personal debts), Change european outlook of the world (we have to see that our future is not resource domination).
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I like the trust our government is garnering globally. Our governments trust and support in our businesses, that adhere to the highest standards of health and welfare globally. Our education, our regulations and our public participation via free media access dictate and regulate our commitment to the betterment of all.
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Start reclaiming the 100,000+ oil sites and people will have jobs! Oil corps either sell dirty sites to juniors who then go bankrupt or trade sites amoung each other to delay regulatory time frames.
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Canada as most developed countries depend on services. However, services are mostly exported to US. We should emphasis on promoting more our products and services to other countries specially Asia such as China, India, Gulf countries, etc. Also, we should nationally focus via governmental financial encouragements to strenthen some promising sectors where have strong background such as Advanced IT, green energies (PV and hydrogen), Medecine, Transports (Bombardier), Robotics.
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Seems to me that there would be better job opportunities and more prosperity if we could compete better with other countries. How many Canadian comapnies are world class? Discouraging eh?! Will increasing taxes, legal work, electricity costs, regulatory costs, etc. help us to better compete??!!
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Legalize marijuana...it will increase the money the government collects as well as opening up many job opportunities in retail and horticulture/agriculture. Many will be nay-sayers but then will go home and have a drink of alcohol. Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol...do the research before you dismiss the idea!
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Please don't comment directly on the poll. I can't accept them there.
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I would like to see huge population growth. We can't imagine competing with country's with vast larger population pools. I would like to see large immigration coupled with incentives for having children. We have a country that people want to live in, let's give them the opportunity.
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How about going after commodity and real estate speculators, criminal tax avoiders, key index manipulators (Libor, Forex, ISDAfix.) In others words how about holding everyone to the standards which we believe exist but are not monitored or enforced but affect us all. What is CBC doing to look at the cumulative and intentional erosion of the economy?
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The important part now is to not repeat these issues in the future. Each place can diversify and if your provincial economy is particularly vulnerable to boom and bust cycles on world markets then take steps i.e. Alberta bring in a small PST and pile that money away for the next "rainy day", not blow it when the times are good
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How about pay off $10,00 of student loans for all those students who graduated from PUBLIC colleges or universities since the year 2006 and make that an automatic grant on graduation going forward. And provide a rebate to anyone making under $20,800/year - $10,400; under $22,880 - $8,320; under $27,040 - $4160; and under $29,120 - $2,080 - (cause that would be $15/hr minimum wage). It just seems to me that since the 1990's we have been trying to make the economy work by funding the upper level. Time to put money at the bottom - it will only float upwards anyway (Trickle Up Theory). Also, this is not self serving. At 62 I would not be eligible for any of these ideas. I am a fan of a guaranteed income. -
The first step is to pay attention to Einsteins two maxims: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Expecting the people and institutions that created our problems to fix them is crazy . Canadian problems require brave new strategies in all sectors. Our drunken intoxication with globalization and trade agreements has robbed us of our own economic sovereignty and our focus on resource based industries has effectively turned us into a third world economy. What's the answer? Look at Canada and restructure its organizational design in government, society, and industry to reed tabling control over our own future and destiny
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The most important thing is NOT to copy what happened in Ontario - i.e. falling hook line and sinker for ultra expensive green energy projects. With Butts as our new PM that is quite likely to happen and Canada like Ontario will be firmly on the path to self destruction.
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Canada is rich in natural resources and our biggest customer, the USA, has recently become a competitor as it now exports oil and gas and demands less Canadian hydrocarbons. For all Canadians, we must gain access to other world markets by building pipelines to the west and east coasts.
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Someone just sent in a 700-word answer. I can't run that.
And I feel bad because you obviously spent some time on it. Please keep your comments to a four or five paragraphs, tops. -
We are not going to move towards a solution to the ailing economy by inventing new ways for people to spend money. We already have a consumer economy that backs up the resource economy and service economy, and it's a cyclic failure.
It is obvious to me that the sooner we need to get as close as possible to -
For decades there have been tankers shipping oil down the west coast (from Alaska) and through the Gulf of St. Lawrence (from the Middle East). Why are we not using Canadian resources in Canada and shipping our excess hydrocarbons to world markets. Making more money through exports is good for Canada.
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let the infrastructure money do its job
Oil up
Looni up
exports up
Stocks up
this will fix itself just give it time
HOC in session for 9 days cons back off -
Here's an excerpt from commenter on-the-Wall observer. (Your post was too long. but I wanted to use your contribution. Hopefully this will suffice for you.)
"We need to stop whining about what our Government can do to give us work and jobs in the old way. We need them to change laws that will facilitate communities taking back work, form co-operatives and learn how to run their own businesses again. We need to work with the science community to develop products that get us off the dependence of fossil fuels. We need help to protect us from the inevitable foreclosures on our housing once the banks realize that they are now holding worthless loans and take a hit on keeping our housing affordable. They will need to provide the stimulus from their wealthy clients/corporations if they want to stay in Canada and maybe in a few years turn the tide of their covetousness to really bringing about real social and financial stability that will ensure their markets in the future. Ford knew you had to pay the people so that he could afford to sell. It is a symbiotic relationship; not one of prey and hunter. We need to stop importing our food and support our own farmers and help by growing our own foods selling only the surplus. We all need to eat. We all need shelter that is safe and sustainable. We need to work on transportation and infrastructure that will have a long shelf life. We need to create our own jobs doing things together that we enjoy and are good at. We need to take pleasure in being part of the solution instead of the problem. We need to form co-ops that will enable us to have a say = look at credit unions. They work and the people who support them are the winners. " -
10 years no pipeline from harper
the pipeline will go through just give it time as the pipeline companies have signed the deals to put them in place
source BNN -
During the past forty years average "family" incomes have declined substantially when adjusted for inflation. Forty years most families supported on one income. During the same time period taxes have increased by more than 80%. The answer is to get government to be more accountable, stop corporate welfare and reduce taxes for people earning less than $100k p/a while chopping away at higher income earners and forcing reinvestment of corporate profits. Corporations should not have so many tax loopholes.
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Suggest that the government start to normalize interest rates as the policy of quantitative easing/holding the central bank rate at artificially low rates is causing housing prices to rise to dangerous levels and rents to increase more than they should. Many people are broke given the double whammy of high tax rates and exorbitant housing costs.
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JM, this is the wrong question. We are price takers on oil, and always will be.
We need to continue to diversify and create more value added goods across all sectors from agriculture to satellites. It won't happen overnight, but it can be done and just like your investment portfolio, the smart money is on steady diversified growth. -
On oil, the private sector will take care of itself. This is the most interesting proposal I've seen yet on moving oil out of Alberta - First Nations groups themselves have got together to propose a rail line from AB to Valdez.
www.huffingtonpost.com -
Raise the interest rates! All this talk about lowering the rates. Everyone is tapped out, its not going to push people to spend more. Savers are being punished. If savers were making some actual returns with higher interest rates, people would spend more. I am a house owner and even I want to see the rates go up, even if be 0.5%
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Revitalize Alberta, with an Albertan refinery where we sell to ourselves refined Canadian fuel, at global market prices, stopping the import of middle eastern oil to the east.
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so little of our oil processed here (minimal %)! Time to process more here! Infrastructure well spent.
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We can not consume our way to empire. This has been our folly over the last two decades, we've converted ourselves to a services industry, producing only dirt and are now paying the price. We need to focus on production.
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Jim Balsille Blackberry founder has it right - our current model of innovation promotion isn't doing us any good. We end up fostering innovations out of university labs, then we fail to support it, and it gets bought up for nothing by US firms. We have to put real investment into new tech startups in Canada, and not keep giving away our intellectual property for nothing.
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First solution involves current court case of Rocco Galati v Bank of Canada which aims to reinstate the bank to its original pre 1974 mandate and not pay huge interest on mounting national debt to foriegn lenders. Second solution is to refine our own oil, smelt our own metals, etc and become more self sufficient to decrease huge trade deficits
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I've noticed a few comments on refining - this link shows our current refinery capacity and demand. We already make more than we can sell, so that's why new refining is very unlikely to happen.
canadianfuels.ca -
Fifteen minutes more for this CBC Forum. If you've been lurking, now's your last chance to have your say.
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How to fix the economy?
Take a very critical view of the nature of what is labelled "capitalism" today. -
Perhaps as a nation we can look to diversify our GDP with a higher focus on the future. The future of moving away from Oil and a lot fossil fuels. "I made that' makes a good point that very little effort goes into protecting and fostering growth in industries of the future which include green and renewable energy, technology, biotech etc. I know there a lot of people that this scares, but whethwer we like it or not, the future is not in oil or natural resourfces as much as it used to be
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If Mr. Harper proved anything, its that more government involvement in oil doesn't do the industry any good. That industry needs massive private capital, not government diddling. Regulate and collect royalties and leave the rest to industry. We need to focus on getting more out of the amazing group of researchers and tech folks we already have. The base is there for more innovation.
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We can not consume our way to empire folks. No matter how hard we try.
New vision, in the 21st century global village. Commodities are failing us and so's our colonial thinking. -
Last post, I promise ;-) If you don't know, this is the kind of R&D that we promote, and sadly give away all too often. I bet a lot of people would be surprise to see how wide the R&D base is:
www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca -
A safer climate bonus to every Canadian household, fully funded by a rising fee on climate pollution, with border adjustments to protect Canadian businesses. With an equal amount to every adult and a half-share to each child, most households, especially the poorer ones, would receive more in bonus than their increase in costs. Predictable, fair, and stimulative, this would accelerate innovation and the transition to a low carbon economy. Ensure aid to the workers disadvantaged by decarbonization.
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That's all the time we have. Thanks for participating! Watch for another CBC Forum tomorrow.
