{"id":1256,"date":"2010-10-15T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T18:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=1256"},"modified":"2010-10-15T14:36:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T18:36:18","slug":"canada-is-the-least-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=1256","title":{"rendered":"Canada is &#8220;the least ugly&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">So, Canadians have been told that we\u2019re the strongest economy in the world right now\u2026 that we have managed the best through the global meltdown. My response is summed up in the quip attributed to William Robson, president of the C.D. Howe Institute: <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0<\/span><em>&#8220;We&#8217;re the least ugly contestant in the beauty contest.&#8221; <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">Here\u2019s a sobering fact about Canada&#8217;s national debt:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>Between the time Parliament broke for its summer recess and when MPs return in September, a total of $14 billion was added to our national debt.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>The Canadian Taxpayers Federation national government debt clock now stands at roughly $545 Billion. When you add in the debt of the provinces, territories and cities, the total government debt across Canada stands at $1.1 trillion US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">Kevin Gaudet, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, puts this Trillion-plus figure in slightly more relatable terms: $32,506 US for every man, woman and child in this country, according to the Economist Magazine&#8217;s Intelligence Unit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">And Gaudet points out:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>&#8220;That puts us right behind Greece.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">Strongest economy? Our situation is nothing to cheer about. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, Canadians have been told that we\u2019re the strongest economy in the world right now\u2026 that we have managed the best through the global meltdown. My response is summed up in the quip attributed to William Robson, president of the C.D. Howe Institute: \u00a0&#8220;We&#8217;re the least ugly contestant in the beauty contest.&#8221; \u00a0 Here\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1257,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}