Thank you, Paul Martin

According to Statistics Canada, the recent global recession was "less severe and shorter in Canada." While our southern neighbour suffered its worst economic decline since the Great Depression, ours was shorter and milder than the recessions of 1981-82 and 1991-92 . Exports and corporate profits fell sharply but, a report released Thursday states, "domestic spending was sustained by strong balance sheets and savings built up in previous years and a financial system that emerged largely unscathed from the crisis in the U.S. and Europe."

And who do we have to thank for that sound financial system? Why, no one else but perhaps the best Finance Minister we ever had, Paul Martin. At the heart of the failure in the U.S. was deregulation of their banking system. For years, they pressured us to follow their lead. According to Mr. Martin, "You couldn't go to a G7 meeting or IMF meeting without it coming up. ... We were under tremendous pressure to 'loosen up Canada.'" Martin just said no, and for that we owe him a great debt of gratitude. He saved our bacon.

The irony is that Stephen Harper gets the credit. He can now roam the world boasting of our superior economic performance backed up by the stability of our financial system, the best in the world according to the World Economic Forum. Indeed, there's a double irony. If Mr. Harper, the small-government man, the champion of free market economics, had had a majority government during that period, he would have likely embraced deregulation -- get the government off the backs of the banks and all that. And we would have been well on our way toward a U.S. style financial collapse.

Of course, Harper caught a break, too. If he had got a majority in 2006, freeing him to institute the failed policies of the U.S., he would have had to take the fall for the results. As it turned out, he has only had minority governments, confining him to moderate measures, and now he gets to walk tall on the world stage as the leader of the country with the model banking system. He was, you might say, saved from his own folly.

As were we. Looking good because of the astute Mr. Martin. I thank you, sir.