23 June 2011

Experts warn of external threats to recovery

Along with population statistics, here’s another one you can bet the current provincial Conservative crowd won’t be holding out quite as enthusiastically as the fabricated version of Bank of Canada' governor’s remarks they were using until recently.

As the Globe reported:

Top policy makers indicated Wednesday that they are on heightened alert for a deeper crisis in Europe that spreads beyond Greece and, potentially, hurts Canadian banks or the wider economy. Though the direct exposure of Canadian banks to countries such as Greece is low, the Bank of Canada warned that Canada’s financial institutions are vulnerable through links to the United States and other countries that are much more exposed.

Those top policy makers include analysts at the Bank of Canada and federal finance minister Jim Flaherty.

The question that remains is what economic problems in the United States and Europe would do to demand for oil – our new chief export – and other commodities as well as what it might do to prices for them as well.  Anything that drops the price and the demand will also drastically affect provincial government revenues.

That won’t be good on a go forward basis, to use another of a recently famous politician’s famous phrases.  Since the provincial government doesn’t even have an imaginary protective bubble this time, that could make what one analyst forecasts as a bad deficit and debt situation get much worse.

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