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Man of the Year - Paul Martin: For staying cool during the bubble
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur Jan 06, 2009 12:08pm |
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| Category | General |
| News Date | Saturday, December 27, 2008 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Last week Time selected Barack Obama as its Person of the Year, a decision that must have taken the editors somewhere in the vicinity of three-quarters of a second to make. North of the border, the choice will be more difficult. Over the past 12 months, our politicians have competed with each other to underwhelm us, and, aside from a couple of Olympians, the "news-makers" of the year didn't make enough news. However, if we're going to judge the person of the year by the size and scope of his or her successes, then the decision becomes easy. This was Paul Martin's year. It was the year in which it became clear that he has been Canada's greatest public servant since the Pearson era.
The Goldman Sachs report on global financial currencies, which the company released in mid-December, read like a list of Martin's accomplishments. Our economic situation hardly makes for cheerful reading, but the news is less bleak than anywhere else in the world. The Canadian economy has "deteriorated less" than other industrialized countries, according to Goldman. Our banking system is doing well "in comparison with the rest of the G10," and the federal surpluses provide "some cushion" against the credit crunch that is eviscerating prosperity the world over. We are in this enviable position compared with other countries mainly due to Martin's vision and his toughness as finance minister and prime minister.
His 1998 decision to halt proposed bank mergers has been utterly vindicated. In a recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine – an interview about why he knew what others did not – Martin explained the health of Canada's banks as the result of restraint: "It was very clear to the superintendent of insurance and me that we simply couldn't afford the risks if one of our banks defaulted. We resisted the siren call of deregulation and in fact tightened up on loan-loss requirements and reserve requirements." |
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