Greens candidate slams 'Harpernomics'

Sudbury Green Party candidate Dr. David Robinson took a swipe at Stephen Harper’s record of economic management today with an analysis of the Conservative government’s performance.

“It will take years for Canada to recover from Harper,” said. Robinson in a news release.

“He is probably the most economically incompetent manager Canada has ever had.”

“He gambled on fossil fuels and he lost,” said Robinson. “By putting all of Canada’s eggs in the bitumen basket Harper took the country back to being hewers of wood and drawers of water. He dragged the country back into the old resource-based boom-bust cycle that we spent half a century trying to get out of.”

Robinson has a list of economic mistakes he claims Harper has made. The most dramatic is that he says Harper is responsible for the devastation of Canada's manufacturing sector.

“He subsidized the oil industry and drove the loonie up,” said Robinson. “The high loonie killed our other exports.”

According to Robinson's news release, he believes that Stephen Harper all but admitted that Canada is in a recession at the recent Maclean’s magazine leader’s debate. He tried to blame slumping oil prices for the economic slow-down.

“Harper should be rejoicing that a lower Canadian dollar is creating jobs, but the low dollar means his plan for the country has failed,” said Robinson.

June figures from Statistics Canada show a 6.3 per cent surge in exports attributable largely to a lower dollar.

“Now Mr. Harper is trying to take credit for a ‘recovery’ from the recession that he helped create,” said Robinson.

The Green Party of Canada has taken a firm stand against dead-end investments in the tar sands and risky new pipelines to export unrefined bitumen to offshore markets.

The Green Party wants to build an economy for the 21st century.

“You can’t build a sustainable economy of exporting tar,” said Robinson.

“I am calling on local candidates Paul Lefevbre and Paul Loewenburg to join me in a northern climate coalition,” said Robinson.

“Let’s agree we can decarbonize our economy by 2050. Let’s put a price on carbon pollution through a fee and dividend approach. If we can end Harpernomics, the North will be better off.”