Some more news items

Here is Don Martin in today's National Post:

[Kevin Page] was appointed last year to provide the government with transparent, honest, fiscal insight. The reward for delivering on that with such embarrassing effectiveness is to be choke-chained.

His office budget remains crimped far below what was promised and is required. When his performance was put to a committee last month, MPs from both major parties scolded him for issuing his reports publicly without giving them time to study the details in private first. Evidently transparency has its limits.

That’s why a contrite Mr. Page scheduled his report’s release for Wednesday, two days after MPs on the finance committee were given the copies they promptly leaked to journalists.

[...]

His baseline conclusion is that the Canadian economy has hit bottom hard, with a modest, slow-moving recovery beginning right about now and culminating in 2014 when it again reaches its maximum potential.

That would indeed be an ugly reality, but Kevin Page was not appointed to spin or sugarcoat.
The government, supported by all parties, should give this unassuming parliamentary officer the tools to do his thankless work properly. Given his current forecasting, we can only hope he ends up being wrong.

As well, here is an article about the projections in the Globe and Mail.