Article content

On the weekend before Christmas, Bill Morneau accused the Official Opposition of talking us into a recession.

“I think it’s a little bit irresponsible of the Conservatives to be making people more anxious,” the finance minister said on Question Period, CTV’s Sunday political talk show.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Tories' 'made-in-Canada' recession narrative is only resonating because the Liberals have a lousy script Back to video

Morneau probably was thinking of one Conservative in particular. Pierre Poilievre, the Opposition finance critic, spent much of December talking about a “made-in-Canada” recession, even though almost no professional forecaster had predicted one.

“I’m aware of your text-book definition,” Poilievre said in Ottawa on Dec. 17 after a reporter described a recession as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction and asked him to produce evidence that such a scenario was likely. “But I will say as Reagan said: A recession is when your neighbour loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. And a recovery is when Justin Trudeau loses his job. Thank you very much.”