Oh Canada, the world holds its breath

Though several weeks have passed since 2008's Christmas season, children spent yet another night lying awake in their beds, this time with visions of Canada's reopened parliament dancing in their heads. Today marks the swinging open of those venerable wooden doors which secure the threshold of Canada's House of Commons, and like everyone, I'm vibrating with expectant excitement. What new vistas are to open before us? What paths will our toiling leaders guide us down? In these unprecedented and historic times, what new modes of decision making will be inaugurated, what pioneering problem-solving algorithms will be unveiled?

Just moments away from the second throne speech in just over two months, will Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government assuage the fretting, worry-besotted anxieties of the opposition parties? Of course, the opposition parties have not forgotten their historic, one-for-the-ages, coalition, their awe-inspiring agreement to overcome their deeply hewn differences on policy minutia in an effort to express their equally deep lack of confidence in Harper's budget, the one that was to deal with the economy. Ask NDP leader Jack Layton. "Excuse me Mr. Layton, but do you have confidence in this government's ability to lead Canada in these trying times?" And he will answer you, "No, I have no confidence, none whatsoever. Where Mr. Harper's plans for the future are concerned, I have no confidence."

Whatever happens, we can rest assured that the prescient warnings and advice of Canada's economists will finally reach ears tuned to listen. After years spelling out the present disaster, economists across the country are rising above the petty "I told you so's", are rolling up their sleeves, crunching the data and offering sober council free of charge, a great bargain in these dim economic times. What will be the point-by-point stimulus package held up by the economics-trained Harper? In a country of 33 million, with a gasping manufacturing sector and a robust natural resources exploitation industry, which employs countless thousand grimace-faced semi-skilled laborers, turning the great vessel of Canada's economy around should be a cinch. In my humble opinion, I hope our economists have convinced Harper of the need to cut taxes, to get their hands out of my pockets, so that I might secure more great deals down at Walmart. With bitten nails and white knuckles we wait!