any comparison to greece is ridiculous. greece is not a money issuer. canada is entirely *unable* to enter the situation that greece is in for the simple reason that it can deflate it's own currency. greece cannot deflate it's currency because it's run by the european central bank. and, in fact, the solution to the problem in greece is very canadian - they need to implement a transfer solution. much like the federal government transfers money from the haves to the have-nots.

harper understands this. he assumes you don't. he might be right. but, don't fall for it. the structural reality is that canada cannot end up like greece, unless it were to, say, adopt the american dollar as it's currency.

regarding the deficit, he slashed taxes too low and relied on record oil prices to make up for it. on the surface, it looks rather foolish.

if greece went back to using it's own currency, it would be worth something like a quarter of the euro. that's the core of the problem: the way the eurozone is set up is incoherent. it simply doesn't make sense for the greek economy to use the same currency as the german economy. if you're going to have a financial union like that, you need to have some kind of political union that balances these things out. this is a problem we've resolved in canada. it would be nice to see him show a little leadership and suggest the obvious solution, rather than scare monger with what he damned well knows are economic fallacies.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/don-pittis-canadian-economy-needs-to-get-out-of-election-mode-1.3166265

Humans Suck @Jessica Murray
Well, they went and loaned Greece more money that they know can't be repaid. I bet the only reason they did so was because the "migrants" that the EU government loves so much will want their welfare cheques.

So, yes, I can understand Greeks rioting and backlashing at these "migrants", Golden Dawn style. If my kid was going hungry, but some foreign jerk was getting free food, yep. I think Greeks are absolutely sick of this, and that's why they tried to vote themselves OUT of the EU, so that can kick these African and Middle Eastern MOOCHERS out of their country.

Jessica Murray@Humans Suck
see, this is also a preposterous perspective. the eu has four of the g8 countries, and a lot of peripheral countries which much smaller economies. it's very similar to canada, which has a few very wealthy provinces and a number of outlying provinces.

the purpose of equalization payments is to address the fact that a province like new brunswick is unable to generate the same tax revenue as a province like alberta. in order to maintain a comparable quality of life, new brunswick takes tax transfers from alberta and spends it on services.

europe either needs to move to a federal system that recognizes that unequal tax bases require systemic wealth redistribution [that is, make these permanent bailout structural and permanent] or it needs to move to a smaller eurozone composed of countries with similarly strengthed economies. it can't have it both ways.

that has nothing to do with canada, which is a money creator and sovereign debt holder, quite unlike greece.