Sadly the Canadian economy — unlike his many admirers both female and male — can’t be stimulated by a shirtless Justin Trudeau.

Nor do negative growth, record trade deficits and high unemployment giddily respond, as will fan boys, to the fact Trudeau is heroically depicted in boxing gear on the front of Marvel’s “Civil War II — Choosing Sides” comic book, released Wednesday.

If Trudeau can tear himself away from admiring his comic book avatar — while visiting the “basic dictatorship” of China he so admires — he should think about this.

Governing is for grown-ups. So it’s time to put down the selfie stick and start acting like one.

As much as Trudeau will enjoy reading about his heroic fantasy exploits — assuming he doesn’t need someone to read them to him — here’s some heavier reading Trudeau should be taking on.

First, Statistics Canada’s report Wednesday — the same day of his comic book debut — that the Canadian economy in the second quarter ending June 30 suffered its largest decline since the Great Recession of 2009, shrinking by 1.6%, worse than predicted.

That came hard on the heels of Canada’s trade deficit growing to an all-time high of $19.9 billion in the second quarter of 2016.

That followed the loss of 31,200 full-time jobs in July, raising the national unemployment rate to 6.9%, the largest monthly drop in full-time employment since October 2011 and far worse than the 10,000 job gain economists had predicted.

To be fairer to Trudeau than he was to Stephen Harper, not all of this bad news can be laid at his doorstep.

Trudeau has no control over the drop in global oil prices, nor the devastating wildfires which hit Fort McMurray this spring, cutting back oil sands production.

Trudeau’s only been in power for nine months, so it’s too soon to judge his effectiveness in terms of the most important job he has, which, believe it or not, is not coming up with a gender neutral national anthem, but managing the economy.

Trudeau’s prescription is we can spend ourselves rich — which oddly didn’t work for Greece — since he’s ratcheted up the deficit to almost $30 billion this year alone, triple what he promised in the election, with more deficits scheduled in coming years for as far as the eye can see.

That’s what’s paying for his so-called middle-class tax cut, which he says will stimulate the economy, even though it will all have to be paid back, with interest, by Canadians, since it’s all financed by debt.

Ditto his multibillion-dollar infrastructure package in which Trudeau and the Liberals congratulate themselves for spending our money to, they hope, create jobs.

Finally, Trudeau’s plan for Canada to obtain the “social licence” it needs to transport and market its oil internationally — apparently built around the idea of pipeline protesters shutting down National Energy Board hearings — appears suspect.

So does imposing carbon taxes on a struggling economy.

Summer’s over, prime minister. Get to work.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com