A friend of mine sent me a comical article today that was penned by a local leadership coaching firm (yawn) summarizing the results of a poll that asked Canadian business leaders to rate the performance of Canada’s Federal leaders. Laughably, Canadian business leaders think Canadian politicians are doing a poor job. Why is that? Is it because the economy is in the toilet? That’s 100% the government’s responsibility, right? When things are going well, most of Canada’s business leaders wait for government handouts (in the form of grants, special tax credits and infrastructure funding) and bitch like crazy that government needs to stay out of their way so that they can be competitive. I’ve been around the table while these kinds of discussions fly back and forth between the Feds and business interests.

Along comes the big, bad recession and business leaders start screaming “why didn’t the government do something about this? What are they doing to save us?” Part of the economic meltdown can be blamed on a very poorly regulated financial sector. Whose interest is it in to have a loosely regulated industry? It’s in industry’s interest, of course. Who would have had to convince the government to not regulate an industry? Lobbyists from private industry. Is business saying that government shoudn’t have catered to their demands back when they were busy digging themselves into this trench? No. They would have screamed “nanny state”.

So which is it? A command and control economy where business takes its marching orders from the government or a free market economy where government stays out of the way of business and the “invisible hand” guides the economy? I’m not naive enough to think that it has to be one extreme or the other. There’s an equilibrium in there somewhere to be sure. I’m just trying to make a point.

Shame on “business leaders” for playing both sides and trying to stick taxpayers with the bill. I take umbrage with your attitude “business leaders” because you’re coming to the biggest lender in Canada (the government) with your hat out while complaining about what a shitty job the government is doing. We taxpayers are the investors and the leaders of this country are our portfolio managers.

If your business is in the toilet right and you’re looking for someone to blame, I think it’s time for some reflection. Ask not what your government isn’t doing. Ask what you aren’t doing for yourself.