Friday, January 12, 2007

Ontario posts negative growth for first time since SARS

Yet Toronto papers seem nonplussed

Last night I speculated that perhaps the reason companies aren’t donating to the McGuinty Fiberals is because Premier Pinocchio and his string-pullers are letting Ontario's economy go down the toilet. Today I see that late-day emission of bad economic news pre-dated my comments by mere hours:

Ontario slips into negative growth in third quarter; GDP minus 0.1 per cent

Ontario PC Leader John Tory was on the ball and got a release out at 7:20 p.m. So Canadian Press moved this story in plenty of time for the papers to put it in Friday’s edition. The Toronto Star had it on their website last night, but I saw nothing in today’s print edition, nor in the Sun, Globe nor Post.

This is Ontario’s first quarter of negative GDP growth since the SARS-induced recession of 2003. Before that, the last negative-growth quarters were in 1992. It’s certainly the first negative growth on McGuinty’s watch.

A history of Ontario recessions (defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth) is at Table 5 in the 2004 Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review.

3 comments:

Joanne (True Blue) said...

You only have to look at all the lay-offs and plant closures in Southern Ontario to know that things are not going well at all.

Dalton's going to be on the hot-seat come election time. It will be hard for him to buy his way out of this one.

Anonymous said...

I guess Dalt the Dolt and the Midget Finance Minister (he is back from his RCMP investigation isn't he?) may now realize that raising taxes by $9 billion, sorry, sorry, adding a $9 billion health care premium, will in fact blow a macroeconomic hole in the economy.

wilson said...

Well, I guess they won't be needing all those extra daycare spaces after all.

That was nasty, but I get riled anytime a Liberal leader comes to town.

The NEP2 Dion is proposing to impose on Alberta will hit Ontario hard too.

Is it time to parade out some economists/analysts with the doom and gloom NEP scenerio on the economy.?
I guess we'll have to see if Buzz gives Dion a photo-op jacket (and a hug) first.

When Don Newman (I'm a fan) starts interviewing environmentalist, you know it is time for a good dose of reality,
(after 3 months of enviro insanity).