Is B.C. recession ready? The answer from the political spin cycle accompanying the provincial government’s A Stronger BC, for Everyone budget is a self-assured yes.
With its all-is-good-today-and-all-will-likely-be-pretty-good-tomorrow outlook, Victoria’s vision for business is “sustainable.” This does not sound proactively ambitious. Nor does the game plan as outlined in the BC NDP’s third budget profess any pretence to ambition.
It points to education and housing affordability initiatives and innovation imperatives in the form of building relationships to tap talent and capital.
Business, however, needs more than another round of elevator music for the masses. It needs help to hone competitive edges because bad weather is rolling in from the east.
Astute traders, shippers, freight forwarders and shipping lines are readying for the storm.
Transport Intelligence’s annual survey finds optimism among global transportation sector leaders evaporating quickly. According to the poll conducted by the U.K.-based logistics analytics company, two-thirds of respondents see a recession on the horizon. The seeds of that pessimism include lack of diversification, domestic instability and a widespread failure in major economic jurisdictions to repair weak institutions.
The ground in which those seeds are being sown is further enriched by higher protectionist trade barriers. Add in weakening international macroeconomic conditions and rising fears of a global coronavirus pandemic and you have leading shipping companies such as A.P. Moller-Maersk conceding in its most recent annual report that “the visibility on what to expect in 2020 [has been] significantly lowered.”
A further deterioration in the economies of its top trading partners is bad news for B.C.
Initiatives to make things more affordable for voters might be the prescription for maintaining the health of incumbent governments, but without concerted legwork to ensure the revenue generators that make those initiatives possible can compete and grow, we will not be able to afford being affordable.
