The piece from the OP is just as unbalanced as the Rah-Rah, bull**** that follows everything the conservatives do, it governs by fake applause, not fact.
What's with all this praise for Jim Flaherty's record? | Press Progress
He missed the greatest economic downturn of our time, that's very poor performance for any Finance Minister and if the conservatives had any real honour he would have stepped down when it became clear that Canada would need to run a massive deficit. Something we weren't informed going into the 2008 election, that's fraud of a another sort, something very common to the Harper government.
#1 Didn't realize a recession was happening when the recession happened
In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Flaherty released a fiscal update in 2008 that made no mention of stimulus spending and calmly projected a modest surplus. The rest of the world was freaking out, descending into financial chaos and taking unprecedented action to stabilize the global economy.
Flaherty's reaction to the global financial crisis nearly triggered a vote of non-confidence. Harper prorogued Parliament instead.
How does running massive deficits make him a great finance minister, Paul Martin actually did deliver balanced budgets and surpluses, remember Mr. Dithers. He makes Flaherty look sad in comparison.
#2 Mr. Fiscal Conservative ran record deficits
Flaherty is a "fiscal conservative" focused squarely on balancing the budget, but tabled seven deficit budgets and racked up $150 billion in debt.
Created many new jobs?
For who, there are hundreds of thousands of foreign workers being brought into Canada, many to take jobs that Canadians are competing for, something the government admits. What's the intent here, to help Canadians or devalue Canadian workers while benefiting employers?
#3 The one million jobs man? Nope
Flaherty talked repeatedly that "one million net new jobs have been created since the depth of the recession in July 2009" -- the depths of the recession.
But how about looking at the Conservative record since the beginning of the recession in September 2008 – instead of from the extreme low point – to judge how well the Conservatives do?
Between September 2008 and September 2013, 653,400 jobs were added to the economy, and more than half of those new jobs (53.4%) were in sales and services, the lowest-paid occupational category.
Meanwhile, the employment rate, which is a better indicator of labour market performance because it measures the proportion of working-age Canadians with a job, is worse today than before the recession (standing at 66.5% compared to 68.3% in 2008).
We kept hearing how Canada was doing better than almost everyone, once more conservative fluff.
#4 The top economy in the G7? Nope, again
Flaherty talked a lot about Canada's economic recovery as a success story, topping all G7 countries.
In actual fact, Canada's real GDP per capita growth puts us in the middle of the pack, behind Germany, Japan and the United States. And among 34 OECD countries, Canada stands at 16th spot when population growth and purchasing power are taken into account.
And it just goes on.
It's too bad that the man died, but it's complete nonsense that he's some kind of Canadian hero, this is just more spin in line with everything else this government keeps putting out.
And conservatives just keep lapping it up because politics does tend to make people stupid and the modern brand of conservatives are more politically partisan than any group I've seen in my lifetime.
How politics makes us stupid - Vox
