Canada in Recession

CANADA - Canada's GDP grew 0.1% in September. Canada's economy grew 0.7% in July, which fell to 0.3% in August. Since July the Canadian dollar has also dropped from par with the US dollar to 77 cents. With Christmas shoppers cutting back a lot this year this doesn't spell much for the Canadian economy.

Analysts are currently predicting the Canadian economy has stagnated at approx. 0.0% or even shrunk during October and November. A week ago on November 23rd Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada is probably already in a recession or will soon be in one by 2009. The United States has been in a recession since fall 2007.

Stephen Harper's lack of an economic plan during this economic crisis however has opposition parties concerned and they've decided to overthrow his minority government on December 8th and form a new Coalition government.

Conservative supporters claim that its undemocratic, but this is not true. Minority governments are supposed to work together and compromise, and that is precisely what the Coalition government is proposing.

The 163 MPs in the Coalition will pick an economic plan which will boost the economy and balance the budget. The 143 Conservative MPs will just have to sit back and watch.

And for those Canadians who think we don't have a say in this democratic process, you're wrong.

We do have a say. We already voted on it back on October 14th. We've already had our say in the matter.

Only 21.8% of potential Canadian voters actually voted for Harper during the last election, that is why he only got a minority government. The opposition parties got 37.3% of the vote and 40.9% did NOT even vote. That means 78.2% of Canadians either voted against Stephen Harper or feel so disenfranchised they didn't vote at all.

It means roughly four out of five Canadians don't like Harper.