7 times Stephen Harper misled Canadians during the debate

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7 times Stephen Harper misled Canadians during the debate

[ http://www.pressprogress.ca/7_times_ste ... the_debate ]

AUGUST 08, 2015 by PressProgress

If you thought there was a lot of truthiness flying around at the first debate of the election, you are not alone.

Here are seven of the biggest factual errors made by Stephen Harper at Thursday's debate:

1. "The reality" is Harper doesn't have a balanced budget

On two separate occasions during the leaders debate, Stephen Harper claimed Canada has a balanced budget.

"We have a budget that is balanced now and other countries don't," Harper said, later explaining "the reality is the figures out of the Department of Finance show that so far this year we are substantially in surplus."

Unfortunately for Harper, the Finance Canada report he referenced only looks at April and May. Another report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer looks ahead and takes into account dire new projections for the Canadian economy released by the Bank of Canada. [ http://www.pbo-dpb.gc.ca/files/files/Bo ... ate_EN.pdf ]

The PBO's projection says Canada will not balance its budget and will run a deficit of $1 billion this year, meaning Harper will run his eighth deficit in a row.

2. "The rest of the economy" is not growing

Did you miss this one?

Seconds after Harper let slip that Canada may be in a recession after all, he began to explain that the "contraction" of the economy is "exclusively" or "almost exclusively in the energy sector" and "the rest of the economy is growing."

This is false. According to the latest data released by Statistics Canada just last week, the biggest contraction in the economy is not happening in the energy sector -- it's happening in the manufacturing sector.

Sharp declines in manufacturing, energy, utilities and wholesale trade (along with finance and the public sector) caused the economy to contract by 0.2% in May, while only construction, retail and "others" saw any growth.

Meanwhile, new job numbers released Friday by Statistics Canada show Canada lost 8,300 jobs in construction last month, 4,600 jobs in manufacturing and 2,000 jobs in the energy sector, although these have been off-set by new jobs in the service industry.

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