EDITORIAL PAGE — Parliamentary gridlock

The nature of the debate in the House of Commons (we use the term “debate” loosely) during the first week of the new Parliament was not encouraging. For those of us concerned about Canada’s economic well-being, it is beginning to look as if Prime Minister Jean Chretien will be dealing daily not with vital economic issues but with — you guessed it — constitutional matters.

During question period on the day following the speech from the throne, the Bloc Quebecois, dedicated as it is to the separation of Quebec from Canada, immediately focused on the sovereignty question.

Later, the Bloc’s party whip warned that the issue may be raised daily. Not good. This country is in dire need of repair, the single most important problem being the national debt, which inexorably rises year after year. There are basically two perspectives on the debt. (Well actually three, but we won’t consider those on the fringe, who believe there is no debt crisis.) The most alarming view is that, soon, Canada will hit a “debt wall,” at which time bond-buyers will ignore the provincial and federal offerings that currently finance the debt and keep this country solvent. The International Monetary Fund would then step in and dictate fiscal and monetary terms and social policy, much in the way it has in many formerly bankrupt developing countries.

The less extreme view holds that a “debt wall” is still well in the future, even if our profligate ways continue unabated. However, the costs of borrowing will rise, and these will become more and more onerous as time passes.

Either way, Canada must sooner or later come to terms with the fact that it is, for all intents and purposes, broke. And this means dealing with the sticky issue of the social “safety net.”

But it is difficult to see how the Chretien government, distracted and harassed daily by the Official Opposition’s constitutional demands, can effectively address the need for economic recovery.

We can only hope that parliamentary gridlock does not result.