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It was entirely to be expected that the economy would contract in the early part of the year, after last year’s 50 per cent plunge in global oil prices — or rather, that the oil and related sectors would. Most other sectors, though, have continued to expand, and must be expected to go on doing so under the combined stimulus of $45 oil and a 76 cent dollar.

What the country doesn’t need is an election campaign fought largely over which party will borrow the most money to spend fixing a recession that is in all likelihood already over

But the negative impact on the oil producing sectors kicked in before the positive impact on oil consumers: while an oil rig can be shut down overnight, it takes time to open or expand a factory. So for a few months at the start of the year, the combined impact netted out as negative. This happens sometimes. No domestic economic policy was responsible and none could have prevented it. It is the occasional downside of being connected to a global economy, so beneficial at most other times.

Still, for the opposition parties, bad economic news on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s watch is manna from heaven. They have, in truth, been starved for ruination until now, notwithstanding their own best efforts. Middle class incomes in Canada, contrary to myth, are at an all-time high, and among the highest in the world. Household net worth is also at record levels: for all the nattering about household debts, household assets are five times as much. Unemployment, at 6.8 per cent, is lower than at virtually any time in the last 40 years. Inflation is non-existent.

But doom-and-gloom narratives, once established, are hard to combat. And indeed, Canada’s economy does face challenges in the longer term: an aging population, a shrinking workforce, sluggish productivity growth. If any of the parties have measures to propose that would tackle these, we’d like to hear them. Liberalizing trade, tearing down internal barriers to competition and simplifying the tax code, to name a few, are all excellent ideas in desperate need of a champion in Ottawa. Now’s as good a time as any.