Scoring Cheap Political Points from Market Slowdown

Peter Muggeridge | August 25th, 2015

As the economic slowdown in China signals what could be a rocky ride in the upcoming months for North American stock markets, political leaders are scrambling to gain political advantage from the sell off.

Although most financial experts point to weak growth in China, a poor U.S. jobs market and anxiety over whether the U.S. Fed will start raising interest rates, that didn’t stop the NDP and Liberal leaders from pinning the blame on the Conservatives. To recap:

Tom Mulcair got the blame game started by saying: “Don’t forget that the reason we’re in such a precarious situation in Canada right now is because Stephen Harper made a huge bet on one number — oil and gas.”
Then Justin Trudeau piled on by adding: “Canadians are sitting around their kitchen tables today and are understandably worried about their investments and their retirement savings, given the news across the markets. But meanwhile Conservatives are scrambling to take political advantage of it and point fingers.”
To which Stephen Harper responded: “I think we want to stay the Conservative course that has, in a troubled global economy, consistently made this country an island of stability.”

Who’s right?

Mulcair’s claim that the Conservatives are to blame for the market meltdown is preposterous and shows little understanding of how the global economy works. Trudeau’s claim that the Conservatives are taking “political advantage” and “pointing fingers” is true on the surface, but isn’t he doing the exact same thing? And Harper’s premise that, during the last recession, the Conservatives made this country an “island of stability” is taking far too much credit for economic forces beyond the control of Tory fiscal policy.

So it turns out nobody’s right. But that’s politics. And during a federal election, you just can’t miss an opportunity to score cheap political points.