Canadian Economic Dynamics

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Table of Contents

Cultural Characteristics
Political Stability of Canada
Market Stability
Basic Economic Data and Economic Stability
Description of Key Institutions, Political and Economic Systems
Summary of Major Current Issue Faced by the Country
References

Cultural Characteristics

Canada is a multicultural and bilingual society. Over the last three decades, there has been incredible transformation in the Canadian social way of living. These changes were brought by the baby boom generation. This generation was born between the period of 1946 and 1962. This generation is described by their unique pragmatic values, desire for empowerment, egalitarianism and hedonism.

They also supported and embraced their ethnic diversity. An investigation carried out in 2002 by CRIC showed that 59% support to the multiculturalism policy. Today, Canadians, reject all views that would suggest multiculturalism as a source of conflict, create ethnicity or cause inequitable sharing of government funding. Instead, they embraced the spirit that multicuralism policy has promoted greater national unity (Dasko, 2003).

Survey conducted by CRIC (2002) shows that multiculturalism cause brings cohesion and greater understanding with 73% believing that multiculturalism indeed brings about equality. Canada is also a bilingual country with English and French speaking Canadians. Surveys conducted showed that Canadians view bilingualism and multiculturalism as important aspects for their unique identity (Dasko, 2003).

People can learn and understand about Canadian cultures through movies, radio programs and the published literature from books, magazines and news papers. The federal government protects the country’s cultural resources to preserve the unique culture. This is done through protection of the National library and the conservation of the country’s heritage such as the museums, national treasures and archives (CLA, 2004).

Political Stability of Canada

Since 2006, the CPC party has been the ruling party. It has been having a minority government until the recent May elections that gave the Conservatives the first majority government. Political analysts argue that Canada has entered a period of relative political stability. The Prime minister has set priorities to improve the economic growth and shrink the budget deficit.

The new political landscape has been brought around by the Conservatives. This is evidenced by the pushing of the proposed budget through quickly and by ending labor disputes prevalent at the Canadian Post. The budget proposed by the Conservative’s projects on cutting costs to balance its books by 2014-2015 (Reuters, 2011).

However, the parliamentary budget independent officer termed the proposed budget as being too optimistic compared to the high government operating expenses. The major policy questions to be raised by the Conservative governance include those of ending Canadian Wheat Boards marketing monopoly.

Others include how the Conservative governance will push major policy changes, how the democrats play their role as the official governing party and other political shifts that will be made to broaden the center movement to defend the Conservatives government (Reuters, 2011).

Market Stability

The global economic trends have laid down significant forces that are shaping the Canadian economy. The country has increased terms of trade (the prices of goods sold internationally compared to those being imported).

The increases in income have led to high market and economic stability. More funds have been invested into the manufacturing and other industries through advancing their machinery and equipment (Jenkins, 2008).

Other evidence of Canadian market stability is the weakening of the U.S. economy. This made the Canadian dollar to trade at a higher value than U.S. dollar. Canada has strong domestic demands. The current CPI inflation in Canada is 1.8 per capita with 1.5 percent core inflation. Canada has stayed on top of the global economy forces.

Canada has corrected the global economies’ challenges shifting the country’s economic risks to the down ward side. The outcome has caused reduction of policy rates by 50 basis points. Therefore, there is need to broaden the flexibility and adaptability through formulation of policies that would help the economy to absorb economic shocks (Jenkins, 2008).

Canada citizens are highly educated. It is the government’s efforts to prepare the citizens with economic knowledge. They do so through certain initiatives such as establishing policies that ensure all information are accessible. Government must function as the model user and provider of economic nature (CLA, 2004).

Basic Economic Data and Economic Stability

Canada’s economic stability is said to be stronger than that of the United State. However, it remains to be acutely vulnerable to political and economic commotion. The banking interest rate is low. There are claims that central bank will keep it that low to handle the economic situation in Canada.

Finance minister and the bank officials have raised concerns about the high bank loans debt levels of Canadian that could result to economic constrains when the rates eventually increases. The major key challenges to watch for are how the government handles the US export recovery, the strategies and approaches to be made in order to maintain high value of Canadian Dollar (Reuters, 2011).

Although the recent elections had little effects on the Canadian economy, Chilean Central bank investigation indicates that elections interfere with the scope of policy making. This further impedes long-term planning.

This is evidenced by the fact that several important bills on the parliamentary order paper are lost during the federal elections. The impact may not be felt directly, but there is slow down of operations in the legislature and financial sector that do interfere with the projects, programmes and other sectors that need government’s attention or financial support (Reuters, 2011).

The minor problems that would cause political economic instability include the money spent during campaigns. As Atkins argued, Canada campaigns involve vote buying with empty promises; such challenges are said to affect the economy.

He cited the theory of business cycle ideas that “incumbent governments will do things like ramp up spending during election” (Reuters, 2011, p. 1). The costs incurred are cut after spending. This produces the boom and bust pattern (Reuters, 2011).

Canada has been listed among the ten largest subscribers and funders of the World Bank. Canada has 2.85 percent shares of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and voting share of 2.78. Her contribution to IDA (a sector of the World Bank dedicated to help the world’s poorest countries) sector has a 3.75 per cent donor share.

Description of Key Institutions, Political and Economic Systems

Governing system in Canada is that of constitutional Monarchy and federal system of parliament. This system was influenced by British parliament. It consists of 10 Provinces and three territories. The head of state happens to be the Queen of Canada. The monarchy appoints the royal representatives known as the Governor General.

The prime ministers advice is required during the exercise. It has been politically stable for a long period. The prime minister holds all the executive powers. He/she is the head of the government and the Cabinet. Governors and the prime minister appoint the cabinet members to lead the various ministries and agencies (Marleau & Camille, 2000).

There are approximately about thirty cabinet members. The monarchy, senate and House of Commons share the legislative power. Selection of members of senate is done by governor general in consultation with the Prime minister. The selection is given in such away that it gives equal regional representation to all thirteen territories.

House of Commons members are elected through a popular vote for duration of five years. By 2008 democracy index, economist ranked Canada 11^th position out of a hundred and sixty seven countries in the world.

Canada constitution is the supreme law of the land. All matters concerning immigration, maritime law are preceded over by the federal court of appeals and federal court trial division. The highest court is the Supreme Court of Canada that handles criminal and civil like cases (Marleau & Camille, 2000).

Canada is a democratic state with several active parties. The dominant political parties are Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois (Reuters, 2011).

Summary of Major Current Issue Faced by the Country

The major issues facing the Canadian economy are the slowdown of the US economy, the global trade imbalances and the high competition from the emerging countries. The slow down of the U.S. economy has affected sectors such as the housing sector and credit markets.

The current large account imbalance has brought about great challenges to the Canadian economy. U.S. has been running a huge deficit for long while the Middle East countries like Asia have been running account surpluses. Two major approaches towards these imbalances have been suggested.

Those with large surplus should rely more on domestic demand while those with deficit accounts are encouraged to increase their savings rate (Jenkins, 2008).

Other challenges to the Canadian economy are in the integration of China and India in the global market. This has brought about high competition, making the two countries being perceived as threats especially by the countries that produce similar goods and services.

The major concern by the Canadians is the economy; this is in terms of unemployment. Other persistent issues are those concerning crime and environment. These are the common challenges worldwide (Jenkins, 2008).

Crime rate is not as high as in some countries. The people affected by the crimes vary with younger people getting more affected than the older people. Buckner explains that people from certain localities are more likely to face crime and violence.

Such localities include those of Columbia and Ontario. More so, women are more likely to face violence than men. Some of the possible solutions raised include those of changes in justice system, gun control laws and the return of capital punishment (Buckner, n.d.).

Canada is facing serious environmental issues including acid rain which is being attributed to the high industrialization. Serious soil erosion from the praire wheat is causing logging and pollution. This has threatened wild life and lifestyles of many people.

However, the problem seems get reduced with the increased efforts by the government to create awareness. In 2000, the government passed enviromemntal act that emphasized on sustainable development. Key challenges in the tourism industry are understanding tourists’ expectations, developing of aboriginal tourism and the efforts to adopt sustainable tourism and improvements of the infrastructure (Haggett, 2008).

According to labor organizations, health systems in Canada face some challenges. These includes increase in health expenditure, poor quality care, under qualified management, over staffing, monopolies and excessively high prices that are as a result of poor competition in the market, others include excessive bureaucracy and expensive administrative costs (Haggett, 2008).

References

Buckner, T. (n.d.). Canadians’ perception of Problems and violent crime. Articles by Taylor Buckner. Web.

CLA. (2004). Canadian library association political action task force: critical issues facing the government of Canada. Canadian Library Association. Web.

Dasko, D. (2003). Public attitudes towards multiculturalism and bilingualism in Canada: Canadian and French perspective on diversity. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.

Haggett, P. (2008). Encyclopedia of world geography. Ontario, Canada: Marshall Cavendish.

Jenkins, P. (2008). Trends and challenges in the global economy and what they mean for Canada and Ontario. Bank for International Settlement. Web.

Marleau, R & Camille, A. (2000). House of Commons procedure and practice Mont petit. Parliament of Canada. Web.

Reuters. (2011). Fact box- key political risks to watch in Canada. Reuters Articles. Web.

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