The federal government is expected to announce new rules Tuesday that would make it more difficult for first-time buyers to enter Canada’s hot housing market.
Sources have told The Canadian Press that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is ready to move on the issue because of concern Canadians may be taking on too much debt.
Economists have advised the minister the best way to protect Canadians is to institute a debt affordability test in order to qualify for a Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. insured mortgage.
During the January 2010 World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the current chairman of the G-20, presented the upcoming agenda for the G-20 and G-8 meetings to be held in Ontario in June. Many were shocked to hear this Conservative leader declare, “We also know markets need governance. For the new global economy, the G-20 is what we have.” Harper went on to speak as an avowed Keynesian committed to a one-world global economy, creating a world “we have been trying to build since 1945”. He went on to warn the world that national self-interest and sovereignty must be opposed to stave off a greater crisis than the current recession. For the next several months leading up to and including the G-20 meetings, Stephen Harper will be attempting to convince the world to find global unity of purpose and adopt what he calls “Enlightened Sovereignty.”
… the speech. (You be the judge)
… some more thoughts here and here.
Waterhouse are you saying that the bounty of food that a country as large and varied as Canada can offer its population is nothing other than subsistence?
What do you eat each night? TV dinner and canned soup, washed down with Budweiser?
I’m saying you haven’t thought or don’t have the capacity to think beyond step zero of your asinine economic “plan” of stagnation.
Waterhouse that’s just a dumb answer, not worth the cost of sending the bytes to my computer.
If you are trying to restate the same old tired thesis that endless growth is at the heart of all economic prosperity, don’t bother. I’ve read the same books.
I work for a high-tech company that has been in business for 60+ years, and has never had as its primary objective growth. The primary objective has always been quality of product, relentless innovation, and profit. Revenue growth was a by-product.
The company is as strong as ever, and many of our competitors who were growth obsessed are long gone.
If that means we are adhering to an “asinine economic plan of stagnation”, according to your way of thinking, so be it. It just means we know more than you.
EBD @ 7:40: Exactly!
PMSH has been Keynesian for a long time now. THIS is the ‘hidden agenda’. The deficits. The spending. Jeniffer Lynch. This is it. The hope is dead. And these changes at the CMHC are meaningless. The only meaningful change in terms of taxpayer liability would be full CMHC privatization and the only meaningful change in terms of preventing a bubble is to end the central bank’s ridiculously low interest rates. The comments I read here about how the US bubble was caused by a lack of lending standards shows that many conservatives have an understanding of economics not much better than a typical leftist’s.
Tj: this time of year you would be eating nothing but canned fruit and root crops. And younwould be typing on an laptop that would cost at least an order of magnitude more than it does now.
Globalization is one of civilization’s greatest triumphs. PMSH has outlined the way forward and if it succeeds he will become one of the most important canadians to have ever lived.
Cytotoxic your arrogance is exceeded only by your foolishness. When you going back to high school?
TJ: Is your company bigger than it was 60 years ago or the same?
I’m beginning to think Harper suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder.
I hope this is all a ruse. But 85 billion though is a mighty big bluff.
JMO
TJ – you are ignoring several things; besides the obvious self-reference where you consider that if you can get your fruit from the Okanagan valley, can all 33 million Canadians be equally supplied by this same singular source? Same goes for all your other food items.
Then, not every country in the world consists of as many different ecological envts as that of Canada, and can’t grow the raspberries in the winter or the wheat in the rainforest or provide the energy required to run greenhouses.
You cannot live by bread alone. The cotton, wool and work needed for your clothing, the material and energy for your home and car and computer and etc..
oh, you may indeed have chickens in your backyard and a vegetable garden but the majority of city dwellers don’t have that. Again, can your sources provide enough for 33 million?
People don’t all want a BMW or large house; you are missing the point. Growth based economics is an acknowledgment of two things: that the global population has increased exponentially, from less than a billion in the preindustrial era to one billion in the 18th c and now 6 plus billion. Second, that this growth is a result of industrialism which is itself based on the market, on trade. Therefore, countries with less rich ecologies can trade their resources. So, they can trade cotton and fruit for wheat and oil.
Your description of your company describes a growth company. Growth doesn’t necessarily mean more of a product (more milk, more fruit); it can mean better quality that brings in more customers. Your growth has been in innovation and quality of product and number of customers.
Time to say good bye to Flaherty may be
Or change his mind a bit wiser
How Flaherty gave too much to some one and too little and more restrict to poor one
80 million to Loblaw for Maple leaf for building 70000 square feet cost only this is only cost 8 million not 80 million help to them come one this is only favor and then put restrict to first time owner more pressure
This Flaherty is ok to give
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Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty speaks to media following meetings with economists in Ottawa, Tuesday February 2, 2010.
The Canadian Press
Date: Monday Feb. 15, 2010 9:07 PM ET
OTTAWA — the federal government is expected to announce new rules Tuesday that would make it more difficult for first-time buyers to enter Canada’s hot housing market.
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I don’t think this video does much to support your case.
Think context: Harper is talking to (and trying to influence) G20 nations and their finance sector. This is a group of people for whom Obama represents the moderate right. Channelling his inner Milton Friedman won’t influence anyone.
Instead Harper uses the language of the soft-left financial elite to press incrementally in the conservative direction.
He cites Keynes as an argument to pay down debts, cites the depression to stop protectionism and talks about necessary governance to introduce the need for low taxes. He even used the “need for regulation” to introduce the need to keep government bailouts from setting a precedent (and got an applause line!)
(I only wish he had emphasized that the worst, most reckless banking practices were not prevented by government distortion but rather encouraged by it.)
For the last 5-15 years I have been watching with resigned dismay a rising tide of fashionable socialism. Until the tea party movement goes mainstream nationally and internationally, Harper currently stands as the worlds premier bulwark against that movement.
Whoops,
Harper is a bulwark against fashionable socialism, not the Tea Party 🙂
Agreed pete e.
Our magnificent Prime Minister gave this speech with the confidence of a statesman and the humility of a Marine captain – it was not ever all about him and PMSH reinforced that point several times. Nothing, IMO, is more irritating than watching a Banty rooster type man strut and crow or witnessing a bull bellering to a stacked audience, announcing his self perceived virility to those who don’t care about his conquests (real or imagined); out west we label that type of guy “all hat, no cattle’. PMSH gave away the glory to those he admired but he kept rational understanding for himself and inferred that it was shared by others present. Metamorphicaly like Wayne Gretzky giving his son encouragement in the Junior Hockey league.
If the new President of the United States had delivered a speech one half as powerful as this (even using his pal teleprompt) the msm would be thrilling and slobbering on every channel, all day and all night! Yet, here in Canada, few will ever see this or hear this tribute from our Prime Minister to his nation – the envy of lesser men is indeed a pathetic excuse for those that will not do or learn (the kiddies at msm are never up to speed or cognisant of the words and deeds of Canada’s first great Prime Minister). The little ‘dig’ at the UN was subtle – as was the assessment of Keys and Communism. If you missed it watch the speech again and learn something.
Like you EBD, I watched the speech and followed the direction of our Prime Minister with awe and hope for Canada and Canada’s future. Some people watched a different speech or they did not follow the drift of the whole; consequently taking words out of context and changing the meaning. JMO.
I read that article last week, was very disappointed to hear Harper sing with the canaries. I am beginning to think that no matter what your political beliefs, once a politician attains a certain level, they are informed they either go along with global scheme or they will be ruined or worse.