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Bill Morneau is the kind of positive thinker who prefers to see opportunity in disaster.

But even the finance minister’s optimism is being tested by a year that has offered little more than opportunity for fresh disaster.

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After he released the fall fiscal update before Christmas, Morneau made light of the pickle he is in – namely trying to implement Liberal election promises, while keeping deficits under control.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” he joked, as he unveiled a deficit $7 billion higher than in his spring budget and a debt-to-GDP ratio that was actually rising – cutting loose the only fiscal anchor stopping the economy from taking off like a fire lantern.

Since then, the skies have darkened considerably.

Morneau boasted in December that Canada is on track to come second in the G7 in terms of economic growth.

Canadians do want to feel someone in Ottawa has things under control

Yet the economy grew by just 0.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, its worst performance in four years. Since then, we have had railway strikes, global trade tensions, Indigenous blockades and coronavirus. A source who works for Apple in the U.S. said the virus is the cause of the worst supply chain crisis in the company’s history, reflected in a share price that’s down 16 per cent in the last week.