Why we all want to be Canadians

[Gob]

Even on a rainy weekday at Ottawa's By Ward market, Canadian shoppers are cheery.

As Americans and Europeans face deficits and drastic government cuts, Canada's economy is recovering from only a mild recession.

Sheltering near the maple syrup stall, local restaurant promoter Melissa Grecco says Canada escaped the fate of the US.

"We felt the effects on corporate bookings, companies not spending money on staff or booking on a limited budget. But we didn't feel it as much as the US. And within the last couple of months our business has exploded."

If you are financing more than 75% of the value [of your home], you have to get insurance. Not for you but for the bank

So Canada is now one of the top performing industrialised economies. How did they manage it?

For a start, painful reforms in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Canada's government, based in the stone neo-gothic Parliament building in Ottawa, along with individual provinces, were able to afford an economic stimulus package.

Whilst other nations borrowed, Canada had a budget surplus for over a decade.

According to James Flaherty, Canada's jaunty finance minister, it was also down to a more cautious approach.

"The Canadian character is relatively fiscally conservative. Canadians themselves are relatively prudent, I think, in terms of how much they are prepared to borrow and the risks they are prepared to take."

Certainly, fewer risks are allowed in the housing market.

Canadian home values have held fairly steady according to Pierre de Varennes, a real estate broker in Ottawa, with 350 employees.

He says stricter standards for homebuyers meant no housing boom and bust in Canada:

"In Canada, you cannot over-mortgage your property. In fact if you are financing more than 75% of the value, you have to get insurance. Not for you but for the bank."

With that protection, Canadian banks have done well from mortgages. And with less exposure to toxic sub-prime mortgages in the US, Canada's six biggest financial institutions, headquartered on Bay Street in Toronto, survived the financial crisis disaster free.

The Toronto skyline that Gordon Nixon, the President of Royal Bank of Canada, can see from his office on Bay Street not only looks very different to Manhattan. It is run differently, too.

"The structure of our marketplace in Canada is very different," he says.

"Most mortgages are held on the balance sheet of banks. The terms are more conservative and there is not as aggressive a marketplace.

"Sub-prime lending is very limited in the Canadian marketplace. What was the weakest asset class in the US and spread to the balance sheets of many banks was one of the strongest in Canada."

But Canada has also been happy to wield a bigger stick when it comes to financial regulation.

But banks must also adhere to more stringent standards. What's more, her office is within walking distance.

"We spent a lot of time looking at what they are doing on a day-to-day basis. We also had good rules when it comes to capital and leverage. And the industry is of a size that it is easier for the regulator to get their arms around it."

Canada's financial sector is smaller and perhaps more insulated than in the US.

Critics add that Canadian banks are less innovative, with higher costs for consumers. Talking to Canadians, they seem to shrug off those arguments, happy with the results of a more prudent and, some argue, less greedy economic philosophy.

John Criswick says being in Canada has helped his business The G8 and G20 is a crucial opportunity for Canadian policy makers, eager to vaunt their successes to leaders gathered in Toronto.

And Canada need only point to growing businesses like Magmic. The Canadian IT firm makes games for the Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and iPad.

John Criswick, who founded in the firm in 2002, says the recession was painful but the odds have been tipped in his favour because he is in Canada.

"The recession definitely had an impact on us. We are half the size we used to be. But we are growing out of that and being in Canada has aided us in that recovery. It is pushing us beyond what our competition are doing in the US."

John's most profitable game? The iconic US brand the New York Times Crossword - currently the top selling gaming app on the iPhone.

The Canadians, it seems, have answers for even the toughest puzzles and they are keen to share their strategies with the rest of the world. Why in this economy, we all want to be Canadian.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10409354.stm

[Beer Sponge]

Who doesn't want to be Canadian? We're awesome!

[@meric@nwom@n]

Careful Canada, Don't advertise your pic-a-nic basket to the hungry bear to the south. We just might have to roll over and take a bite!

[Beer Sponge]

In your metaphor, are we Boo-Boo?



I don't think my alcohol has worn off yet...

[@meric@nwom@n]

Booboo was the smaller, smarter and more cautious bear....

[The Hen]

Sounds like the UK.

[Scooter]

It's definitely not all wine and roses. There were some sectors, like the auto industry, that were very hard hit. Before the recession even began, the current gov't frittered away a budget surplus by enacting a 2% cut in the Goods and Services Tax (our version of a VAT) which economists were virtually unanimous in denouncing as the wrong move. We are now stuck in a deficit hole out of which the gov't may never be able to dig itself.

[Lord Jim]

It's definitely not all wine and roses.

Shouldn't that be, "Moose Head and Praire Crocuses"?

[Scooter]

Take off hoser

[Rick]

Canada got my Mom and my sister.

They don't need me...

[Lord Jim]

Sounds like the UK.

That may be a good analogy...

Because Yogi was the boss, and Boo Boo, even if he had misgivings, always wound up going along....

[@meric@nwom@n]

Yogi sounds Canadian though, "N-eh-eh-eh ee".

[loCAtek]

[rubato]

They are not governed by the rabid attack weasels of the US Republican party.



Their recession is 1/3 as damaging and employment began to recover earlier. Liberal government with more effective regulation of the financial sector is objectively better.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

At these G-20 summits, it's customary at the end for the participants to take a group photo dressed in garb associated with the host country....

So since this year it.s being held in Canada, perhaps they'll all step out on the stage dressed like this:




or perhaps this would be somewhat more dignified:

[Scooter]

The way both some protestors and the police "dealing" with them have been acting, I'd opt for the former.

While probably modest in comparison to damage done at G8/G20 summits in other countries, this is probably the worst violence Toronto has seen since the Rebellion of 1837. A few ne'er do wells took it upon themselves to torch police cars, smash storefront windows, and perpetrate various other forms of mischief yesterday and today. Not to be outdone in demonstrating their stupidity, police were letting the vandals elude them while setting their sights on non-violent protestors who were often seated peacefully on the ground when whacked by batons and hit with rubber bullets. So much for a billion dollar bill for security.

And so much for meaningful protest. One has to marvel at the intellectual vacuity of this weekend's protestors when I witnessed one bozo carrying a sign with the following message:

DOWN WITH INAPPROPRIATE FASCISM

Had I not been loaded down with the fruits of my consumerism acquired at a sale at Best Buy, I would have been tempted to approach said bozo to ask what "appropriate fascism" might look like.

[Gob]

[Lord Jim]

DOWN WITH INAPPROPRIATE FASCISM

What?

As opposed to appropriate Facism?

This sort of braindead testosterone charged behavior has been going on for years, at every single international conference...

Folks who have come to these events to peaceably protest what they see, (wrongly in my view) as some sort of "conspiracy against the little guy"...

Only to have their protest hijacked by some self styled "anarchists" (I've had conversations with a couple of these "Anarchists"...they have have absolutely no idea what the historical antecedents of "anarchism" were all about....like the hippies before them, they just got involved to get laid.)

I think a prudent rule of thumb in dealing with these wannabe revolutionaries would be...

If you show up at the protest dressed like a Ninja, you are subject to arrest...

[Scooter]

As opposed to appropriate Facism?

As I said, I was tempted to ask, but feared that the Best Buy bags would have branded me a tool of the MOTU and could have garnered an unpleasant reaction.

I think a prudent rule of thumb in dealing with these wannabe revolutionaries would be...

If you show up at the protest dressed like a Ninja, you are subject to arrest...

Oh, but they have learned. At certain (presumably predetermined) moments, a group of them will change into black garb in the middle of the crowd, emerge, commit mayhem, scurry down some side street or alley, change back into normal clothes, and rejoin the crowd.

[Lord Jim]

Well then, I think a logical solution presents itself...

When this bunch decides to peel off from the main protest, and "express itself" by destroying public and private property, and creating general mayhem, every single one of them should be made to spend some meaningful period of time in Stoney Lonesome....

Not a night in jail, processed in and out, mind you, but perhaps a month as a guest of the local constabulary....

I suspect that if this approach were taken, that in short order, we'd see a lot less of this....