[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Firstly, there's debate with pretty much anything involving economics. It's a moving target and everything is based in theory, even when looking at historical data.

Secondly, there's debate right in the main part of your quote. It is difficult for policymakers to battle uncertainty caused by the business cycle (ie, the oil prices that no one can do anything about). It then says that uncertainty about policy is unusually high. Which begs, how are they measuring uncertainty? Is it the low/stale corporate investment? While policy may be a contributing factor to that, so is the state of the oil market in general, and I would argue is much more significant. If oil was still at $90, I would bet everything would still be trucking along just fine with or without the NDP.

NDP has been left holding the bag of a whole bunch of crap with the deficit brought on the PCs combined with the ridiculous drop in oil, neither of which has anything to do with them. I certainly agree they should at least be more vocal and specific about what their plans are going forward, even if they are waiting until after the federal election to release a budget, but you can't expect the government to base their policy around what is an aberration in the business cycle and one that is historically volatile. It is up to the businesses that operate in this market (and have done so for generations, and should presumably be learning from the past) to guard themselves against the volatility of the market in which they have chosen to operate. I find that, generally speaking, the people crying now that the government isn't doing enough to step in and help the oil companies are same type of people who cry when the government is too involved in the private sector when times are good.

Not doing enough? That's not really it.
What people are saying they should/should have got out of the way right now - not add to the uncertainty.