Get Ready for Canadian Rule

(Fast Company – Anya Kamenetz)

Now that Dubai has collapsed, Canada’s looking like the next best place to weather the economic storm. “When the tidal wave comes, the question is can you still feel the ground under your feet? And we can.” That’s the view of Sandra Pupatello, Ontario’s minister of International Trade and Investment, whom I met with today in New York.

Surprisingly, Canada’s economy is outperforming the rest of the developed world. Its banks were too strictly regulated to take in the worst excesses of the subprime madness and as a result, it’s beating even Swiss banks: In fact, at the beginning of the crisis last fall, the country’s banks were rated the best capitalized in the world. While the U.S. has been tiptoeing up to the necessity of bank nationalization, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has no problem with charges of “socialism.” They’ve put into place one of the most generous bank stimulus plans around to try to stem the credit crunch. Read more here.