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A failed model

I wonder what Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks about the United Nations General Assembly’s second World Happiness Report

I wonder what Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks about the United Nations General Assembly’s second World Happiness Report, which ranks countries based on several measures of well-being and analyzes the factors that contribute to that well-being.

Denmark was the happiest country, followed by Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada. The United States ranked 17th, bested by Mexico, Panama and the United Arab Emirates.

I remember reading about a speech that Harper gave as the leader of the opposition to a group of business people in New York City. In that speech Harper spoke disparagingly about the socialist countries in northern Europe and glowingly about the American model based on the creed of greed.

Canada’s fairly admirable position in that report has been achieved despite the policies and idealogical bent of the Harper government, in my opinion. But now with our debt to GDP having increased by over one-third since Harper became prime minister our country is heading in the wrong direction, away from the social policies that have contributed towards the successful Scandinavian countries and towards the failed American economic policies that are adding 11,000 food stamps recipients per day.

The U.S. poverty rate is higher now than it was in 1965. But all that means nothing to a brain-washed, weak-minded economics major.

James Paterson

Parksville