Canada stands tall among G8 countries

Canadian Press
June 21, 2005

OTTAWA -- With the next G8 summit scheduled July 6-8 in Perthshire, Scotland, Statistics Canada is reminding people where Canada stands among member countries.
-gee is this like the UN rankings where our liberal buddy Kofi ensures Canada of a high ranking?

The agency says that although Canada has the smallest population of all G8 countries, it is one of the leaders in terms of economic expansion, employment and the education level of its workers.
-who says this? Statistics Canada? am I supposed to believe them, me sitting here as a conservative?

On the downside, Canada's labour productivity has been substantially below those of France, Japan and the United States.
-not surprised at this, lack of business investment, lack of usage of technology and generally poor quality of management in Canada

But the agency says Canada is keeping up with, and in many cases surpassing France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
-most of that list is not difficult to surpass, excepting the UK and the US. I'm guessing that this is liberal speak for we are keeping up with those two countries

And despite Canada's size, it had the third highest gross domestic product per capita in 2004 at about $31,000 US, third only to the United Kingdom at $31,100 and the United States at $39,800.
-mostly due to our favourable trading status with the US eg. auto pact. But I am surprised that our GDP is only 78% of that of the US.

And as Prime Minister Paul Martin is fond of pointing out, Canada led the G8 in economic growth between 2000 and 2004.
-well we had too though, coming out of a recession

Statistics Canada also says that:
By 2003, Canada had the third highest employment rate at 73.3 per cent for the core working-age population 25 to 64. It followed only the United Kingdom at 74.2 per cent and Japan at 73.9 per cent.
-hard to believe since some areas of this country have quite high unemployment

In 2003, Canadian women had the highest employment rate of all G8 countries.
-one stat I do believe, since Canada has beat up on white men under the age of 50 to accomodate the aspirations of the new feminist class

In 2002, 43 per cent of Canada's working-age population aged 25 to 64 had a college diploma or university degree, the highest rate in the G8.
-this I also believe, but what about the quality of education that most of these people received? Then there is the issue of the 40,000 foreign students in Canada (40,000 locals without seats in Colleges and Universities btw...), many of which will stay and be handed PLUM JOBS here!

In 2003, Canada was near the middle of the pack with its jobless rate of 7.6 per cent.
-how can we have high participation rates for workers and high unemployment rates?