The 64th Annual Meeting of Midwestern Legislators was dominated by discussion on the economy and trade said Steinbach MLA, Kelvin Goertzen, who was one of the Manitoba delegates to attend.
“With the current condition of the North American economy and particularly in the United States, it naturally dominated the discussions,” said Goertzen. “While most midwestern states and provinces are doing better than their counterparts in the east and west, virtually every jurisdiction is dealing with declining revenues and higher unemployment.”
The general sense from legislators and economic analysts attending the conference was that the U.S. recession, which began in December of 2007, has likely reached the bottom with the expectation that modest growth in the gross domestic product in the U.S. could begin again in the last two quarters of this year. Every state in the United States is in a recession by definition, except the state of North Dakota.
“There seems to be guarded optimism that the recession, which was longer and deeper than initially expected in the United States, may be showing signs of stability but that it will still take months or years for a full recovery,” said Goertzen. “Given the nature of our economic relationship with the United States, what happens down there has strong implications about what happens to us in Canada.”
Goertzen noted that there were several discussions about the need for Canada and the United States not to become protectionist, with specific concern raised about ‘buy American’ policies being placed in some United States programs.
“Time and time again it has been shown that putting up trade barriers hurts the economy, not helps it. And that applies to both of our countries. That message was brought to our American friends,” said Goertzen.
