Yes, we love our country, but ‘best in the world'?
-Jeffrey Simpson
Canada has suddenly become one of the world’s most crappo countries.
While we were all off celebrating Canada Day (except in Toronto where it would violate the collective bargaining rights of the city’s striking municipal employees), someone snuck in and turned the country into Loserville.
Here are five items from the July 2 papers:
1. Our air is one big sewer
OTTAWA - "Canada is doing the least of any of the world’s wealthiest countries to fight climate change, says the World Wildlife Foundation in a report card released yesterday.
Of the G8 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- Canada is one of the few whose emissions are still increasing, the 2009 Climate Scorecard said, blaming an “expanding exploitation of the tar sands” in Alberta."
2.We're mean, cruel and penny-pinching towards the jobless
"OTTAWA - Canadian recipients of unemployment insurance benefits are poor cousins compared to their counterparts in most OECD countries, says a new study.
The study, to be released Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says Canada ranks almost dead last along with Britain and the United States in terms of the replacement income its EI recipients get from the program’s benefits.
Denmark, followed by Belgium and France, provided the most generous benefits, all of which were at least three times higher than Canada’s in terms of the percentage of employment income they replace, said the study, which is based on 2005 statistics. Canadians earn 12 per cent of their employment earnings while on EI, while that number is 49 per cent for Denmark."
3. Americans are smarter with their money
"Toronto - Americans look set to become better savers than Canadians for the first year in almost four decades as harsh economic times drive them to save their pennies. The higher savings rate is crucial to get U. S. household balance sheets back in order, but the corresponding drop in spending will deprive Canada of a key source of economic growth.
The percentage of disposable income saved by U. S. consumers shot to 6.9% in May, the highest level since December 1993. The rapid increase in the rate, which stood at zero in April 2008, has caused an historical anomaly by surging ahead of the savings rate of cautious Canadians. Canada’s savings rate stood at 4.7% in the first quarter."
4. Our health care is so bad it's used to scare Americans
"WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Wednesday blasted health care reform opponents for citing faults in Canada’s medicare system as a tactic to “scare” Americans away from embracing his plan to create a publicly run health insurance program in the United States.
With Congress struggling to meet an August deadline for passage of comprehensive legislation to overhaul America’s privately run system, Mr. Obama said critics were distorting his proposal with false claims that he was planning to impose a government-only plan on patients.
“Whenever you start hearing these arguments about socialized medicine, government takeover, rationing, Canada-style health care, what I need you to do is to actually pay attention to the argument,” Mr. Obama said during a town hall meeting on health care in Annandale, Va.
“And don’t let people scare you out of reforming a system that we know is not working.”
Mr. Obama has largely avoided specific references to Canada’s health care system as he attempts to build support for his own health care proposals, emphasizing he favours a made-in-America solution, where a government-operated insurance plan complements coverage offered by existing private insurers."
5. Those banks we're so proud of are no big deal
"Toronto - Jim Flaherty, the Federal Finance Minister, has touted Canada’s banking system as the best in the world in the past few months, but the latest rankings from a top financial publication show that not every member of the Big Six has been as lucky in escaping the global financial crisis.
Contrary to Mr. Flaherty’s rhetoric, no Canadian banks made it into the top 30 of The Banker magazine’s annual list of 1,000 banks, sorted by capital strength, released on Tuesday.
Capital strength, as defined by the Financial Times magazine, includes only the core of a bank’s strength: common stock, disclosed reserves and retained earnings and excludes such things as cumulative preference shares, revaluation reserves, and long-term debt.
However, with losses of some US$4.3-billion, the CIBC can call itself the 15th-worst bank in the world when it comes to the largest losses, capping off a disastrous 2008."
Boy, do we stink. A nation of dirty-lunged, out-of-work, spendaholic chronic invalids, with a lousy banking system. How did this happen? I wonder if it's too late to emigrate to North Korea?
Kelly McParland
National Post
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