Posts Tagged ‘economy’
Mansbridge interviews Harper in London
Peter Mansbridge interviews Prime Minister Harper while in London for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Links:
Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition a political threat to economic recovery: Flaherty
Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty says a potential election and the spectre of an opposition coalition government pose a political risk to the economic recovery.
Under an Ignatief-NDP-Bloc Québécois government, nothing would be safe. No part of our economy would be spared. No taxpayer would avoid the hit.
- Jim Flaherty
Completely free markets are unstable: Harper
Stephen Harper says the G-20 has become the steering committee for the global economy, and that such global governance is required to prevent instability created by the free market.
A completely unregulated, ungoverned market, a market without governance, is unstable. And to the extent we now have a truly globalized economy, we need some semblance of a global governance …
We’re not talking about world government. I don’t think anybody is going to come in and say we’re prepared to surrender our sovereignty to the G-20 or some other body. But what they are going to say, in practice, is that we have to coordinate our policies to create stability for all of us.
- Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Ignatieff would cancel tax cuts to pay for new spending priorities
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would cancel planned corporate tax cuts and take longer to eliminate the deficit in order to pay for new spending priorities identified at the Liberal thinkers’ conference in Montreal.
Ignatieff announced that a Liberal government would freeze the corporate tax rate at 18%, indefinitely deferring the Harper government’s plan to cut the tax to 15% by 2012.
We’re not the NDP here. We believe passionately in competitive corporate tax rates. We’re telling you though, we can’t afford them now. There’s just too much we have to do to get our fiscal house in order and make the investments that will make us a productive society.
- Michael Ignatieff
Ignatieff also pledged that a Liberal government would reduce the deficit to 1% of GDP within two years of taking office, somewhat slower than the Harper government’s plan which projects the deficit will fall below 1% of GDP in fiscal year 2012-13.
Ignatieff says these measures are needed to pay for the new spending priorities identified at the conference, which include national strategies for:
- Education and training, including a focus on illiteracy, language training for new Canadians, early learning and child care;
- Health care, including a focus on preventative health, home care for seniors, and increasing the compassionate care EI benefit from the current 16 weeks, and;
- Clean technology and renewable energy.
Related videos:
- Video: Ignatieff defends taxes and activist government (September 21, 2009)
Harper defends Keynesian response to recession
Stephen Harper defended his government’s economic stimulus package in response to a recent Fraser Institute report claiming the stimulus had no effect on GDP.
We’re not going to act on the basis of ideology, we’re going to act on the basis of what the economy needs. And that is what we have done.
- Stephen Harper
Related Links:
