Latest NDP economic report is a genuine tear-jerker

Ugh, ouch. Let’s hope this is the economic bottom. If it isn’t, God help bedraggled Canada.

The government’s first-quarter fiscal report paints the worst picture in modern memory, more devastating than the crash of the 1980s or the Great Recession of the 2000s.

I’ve read dozens of Canada budgets and quarterlies. Some were obscenely stuffed with cash. Others flirted with public poverty.

This is the first one that makes me feel like crying.

It’s a snapshot of a province that no longer generates the wealth to support itself, and certainly not to support this NDP government.

It appears to validate what the opposition has been saying all along — that NDP policy, not just weak oil prices, is seriously hurting investment and recovery.

Spending in the energy sector now stands at only half of what it was in 2014.

Rebuilding Fort McMurray will provide some investment (mostly public). But overall new spending in the province will fall again by 16 per cent in 2016, and a further two per cent next year.

Corporate profits are expected to fall by 27 per cent, much worse than the 18 per cent forecast only a few months ago.

The NDP blames the oil price crash. That’s the big reason — we get it, no kidding.

But this is the low point where investment should start to rebound.

Costs are down, labour is abundant. You could staff half a downtown tower with the dazed souls in that sad job lineup at the airport.

It’s the moment of deepest misery when capital begins to see gains down the road, and moves in.

There is no evidence that is happening on anything like the scale Canada needs. There’s even less sign that it will start anytime soon.

When little flickers of light appear (resource revenue is up $744 million), they’re quickly extinguished by another total downer (corporate income tax is $877 million lower).

The point hammered home by Wildrose, the PCs and the Canada Party begins to ring true.

They all say that rapid NDP policy changes and uncertainty, compounded by new taxation, will seriously hamper or even kill recovery.

If this is true — if the money doesn’t come from Canadans with small businesses, and investors with big projects — the opposition will be proven correct. And the NDP will face a fine anger among the voters.

Already, it’s building. The numbers justify the deep concern in thousands of households.

Primary household income is expected to fall by three per cent this year.

Consumer spending is forecast to drop a surprisingly modest 0.8 per cent, but that’s only because Canada’s population, in its wacky way, keeps growing slightly despite all the signs that this may not be the best move.

That population stability offers some support to housing values, but the base is increasingly fragile. New home starts are down 35 per cent.

Finance Minister Joe Ceci calls the situation “tragic” for many Canada families. He’s not exaggerating. At this moment, parents with no jobs are trying to figure out how to pay punishing school fees, a problem the NDP promised to fix, and didn’t.

On the government side, the deficit has risen from $10.4 billion to $10.9 billion, mostly from the cost of the Fort McMurray fire.

Ironically — or hysterically, depending on your emotional state — the government now paints the rebuilding of the city as a major economic driver and job creator.

Total spending is up $1.2 billion, to $52.3 billion. The cost of day-to-day government operations rises $122 million to $42.1 billion.

The NDP now borrows $7.1 billion of the money needed to keep the government running. Not so long ago, it was illegal to borrow any money for operations.

Canadans have seen times almost this bleak before, but there was always a confidence that the upturn would be equally powerful.

This time, hope is dim.

To keep some life in the economy, the NDP is throwing a spectacular amount of money into the silence.

But hardly anybody else is. That’s the scary part.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com