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This election may have been about many things, but as an economist, October 19 will certainly go down in the Canadian history books as the day Keynes was welcomed back to Canada. Indeed, the Liberal Party campaigned on the promise to run deficits to help the flagging economy, and Canadians embraced the idea in a spectacular fashion. It was, in the words of Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky, the 'Return of the Master."

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While only half-way through these elections, they are in a real sense all but over.  Or rather, we know at least one outcome: Stephen Harper's Conservatives have lost these elections, and they have run out of time to turn things around (at this point, there is not much to turn around). The only remaining mystery for Canadians is to determine who between Thomas Mulcair's NDP or Justin Trudeau’s Liberals should form the next government.

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Balanced budgets have emerged as the key idea in these elections, with all three political parties having a say on how to spend federal dollars. This is surely not surprising, on the eve of Statistics Canada's release of official numbers for June, expecting to end speculation on whether Canada is in recession. Of course it is. I predicted as much in February 2015, based on the fact that aggregate demand was simply too weak to support growth. 

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First, it was his enthusiastic support and admiration of Margaret Thatcher; now it is his overzealous support of balanced budgets.  What's next? What is Mr. Mulcair ready to do to get the keys to 24 Sussex? How close is he willing to cozy-up to the neocons to move in? 

It turns out, there is nothing NDP-ish anymore about the NDP. That old party is gone. Buh-bye! 

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In an interesting, if not revealing, column in the Globe and Mail (August 29, 2015), economist Todd Hirsch writes that in economics, unlike in philosophy, religion, psychology and other social sciences, uncertainty poses a great challenge.  But economists, he claims, are a different breed.  We are, he claims, uncomfortable with admitting that the future is unknown; we have problems admitting that "we just don't know."

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent admission, on August 24, of having had a telephone conversation with Bank of Canada's Stephen Poloz, in the middle of a federal election campaign, raises important questions regarding the independence of Canada's central bank and jeopardizes Mr. Poloz's conduct of monetary policy.