You Like Us You Really Like Us

Canada 'not at its best at the moment': Economist

The Economist this week is Covers Canada literally. We are the Cover Story. They like us they really like us. Well they should we are the most successful capitalist economy in the G8, or the G9 or the G10, of the G11 or the.....And we Love NAFTA.....Ask Paul........We are fighting those nasty Yankee Protectionists to defend something that the Liberals once claimed was the fight of their life to oppose.....Yep the Economist says we're cool, and then the other shoe drops........
The magazine also points to Canada's peculiar flaws. "Canada has everything, except perhaps ambition." Ouch. And with tha erudite British aplomb they co on to give our little country their capitalist report card;

The latest edition says Canada is beset dysfunctional politics, grumpy anti-Americanism and three brewing political storms: one in the West, one in Quebec and one in its relations with the United States. The business-oriented publication is running a 14-page special report and a lead editorial on Canada.

It's upbeat about Canada's overall prospects: "Peaceful, diverse, tolerant (in June gay marriages became legal throughout the country) and with long-term riches to boot - if this isn't 'cool', what is?"

However, it points to building political turbulence.

Looking at the campaign for the Jan. 23 federal election, the survey describes the country's politics as "a fractured mess."

Prime Minister Paul Martin is "a fine finance minister, but as prime minister he has, on the whole, disappointed."

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is described as "an aloof, cerebral figure, disparaged well beyond Liberal circles as a neo-conservative importing dangerous ideas from the United States.

He is also "clueless with the media."

Yep that sort of hits on the head doesn't it.