He can’t swim nude: too many layers to take off

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Stephen Harper told an audience in Brampton last week, “in times like these I’m reminded of a quote by investor Warren Buffett.”

By “times like these,” of course, the Prime Minister meant “times when my staff gives me a handy Warren Buffett quote for the big speech.”

Most people who found themselves quoting Warren Buffett last week were quoting the bit where he told a television interviewer the economy has “fallen off a cliff,” but apparently that was a bit gloomy for Harper’s purposes. So here’s what the Prime Minister’s people dug up instead. Buffett “once said, ‘It is only when the tide goes out that you know who was swimming naked,’ ” Harper said. “The global economic crisis has revealed quite a few skinny dippers but Canada is not one of them.”

And indeed it is so. Stephen Harper has not been swimming naked. If anything, he has been swimming in—in—in the very opposite of nakedness. He has been swimming in ample, modest calf-length bathing trunks. And a three-piece suit. And a parka. Wrapped in cellophane.

I am speaking metaphorically, of course, and so was he. What he meant to say was that this country is entering the most difficult period in memory in a position of significant comparative strength. Or as he put it, “This country is entering the most difficult period in memory in a position of significant comparative strength.”

His evidence? “The strongest banking system in the world.” “The best fiscal position in the G7.” The latter refers not only to “the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio and a long-term structural balance in the budgets of most governments” but also to “strengths in off-balance sheet items such as a solvent public pension plan.”

This is all true, and the Prime Minister is right to emphasize these strengths. He did indeed inherit a sturdy, modest banking system: his government has not changed Canadian banking in any way since he was elected in 2006. He did inherit a low debt-to-GDP ratio. As his finance minister, Jim Flaherty, pointed out in last autumn’s economic statement, it’s been the lowest in the G7 since 2004. And it’s true that Canada’s public pensions are solvent because governments a decade ago agreed to hike contributions. Jason Kenney, who today sits in Harper’s cabinet, complained about that decision for years.

But let’s let bygones be bygones. Thanks to Canada’s significant comparative strength, if you’ve just lost your job you’re only 65 per cent as unemployed as you would be if you were Japanese. You might say, “Paul, that’s a meaningless assertion,” and you’d be right. My only defence is that I’ve been listening to the Prime Minister.

“Now some in the opposition are even suggesting that the government should provide notice or even approval for each individual spending project,” he said near the end of his speech. “That is not realistic—ever. And certainly not realistic in today’s world.” Boy, you bet it’s not realistic! It’s also not true. That’s not what the opposition is suggesting. In fact we’re heading toward a handy multi-partisan consensus, because Harper has identified opposition demands which (a) aren’t realistic and (b) don’t exist.