The Bank of Canada has announced that the recession is officially over. Flaherty is a glow with the “sound fundamentals” of the Canadian financial system. Markets are up. Housing starts and transactions are better than first predicted. Canada is poised to emerge ahead of all other major industrial nations. Or so goes the story.
Stats Canada announced today that unemployment is up significantly and the trend does not appear to be changing. The Daily said:
“In May, 778,700 people received regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, up 65,600, or 9.2%, from a month earlier, with Alberta and Ontario showing the fastest rates of increase. This rise followed an increase of 3.7% in April.”
Ontario and Alberta are the hardest hit provinces. Since October 2008 EI beneficiaries in Alberta has increased by over 200%! Ontario clocks in at just under 100% increase. Youth unemployment is staggering in the under 25 year demographic with +94% increase.
The official number “eligible” to receive EI benefits is 778,700. Those that are not receiving benefits but cannot find work are not included in the numbers, or those that have exhausted their benefits remain outside of “official” statistics.
Well it seems that the banks and finance speculators are doing alright. For the millions of workers without income the story is different. Hardship still dominates workers’ lives and will remain the central feature for workers as long as the capitalist system of exploitation remains.
Harper, Flaherty, Clements and MacKay and the rest of the rightwing think-tanks, academics and pundits are lying to Canadians. They need to be removed from power at the first opportunity. And those that say that the Liberals are just as bad will get no argument from this writer, however Harper is in power now, we will deal with Igantieff and his ilk when that is required.
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