Austerity chokes Canada's needy
The exceedingly aggressive austerity cuts carried out by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over the past seven years have come home to roost as Canadians, depressed and without hope, are succumbing to its worst consequences. Programme cuts have had a huge, disproportionate impact on the poor and underemployed.
The massive austerity programme translates into less income, decreased services, and reduced health care for many of Canada's most vulnerable people. It appears that more than four million Canadians - mainly the poor, the unemployed/underemployed and the under-privileged - are struggling.
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Throughout the Conservatives' seven years in office, independent economists argued that the austerity programme was not achieving its stated goal of preparing the country for an economic recovery, but Flaherty refused to budge.
Then in April, the world was shocked when the austerity experiment, which destroyed the lives of millions in Europe, was totally discredited. Thomas Herndon, a young University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate student in economics, discovered that an influential paper endorsing austerity practices as a way of rebuilding beleaguered economies was incorrect because of spreadsheet coding errors and selective data.
Amazingly, Flaherty continued with the austerity experiment. "What I worry about is those that suggest that austerity should be abandoned," he noted. "I think that's the road to ruin quite frankly."
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201388102455922618.html