When the times get tough, the tough buy stocks!

Now technically speaking, the Prime Minister is probably correct and offers sage advice for those that invest. Most financial advisers will tell you that the best time to find a bargain on the stock market is when it's at it's lowest levels. When everyone is scrambling to get out, it's the premium time to get in, providing you have no family obligations and have the financial resources to do so.

However, in a week that has seen the Toronto Stock Exchange suffer huge and historic losses, where Wall Street offers a roller coaster ride every morning, regularly stopping further down the index than when it started, in a week that has seen many wonder if indeed these are the great financial reckonings we've been warned about. The prospect of buying stocks probably isn't very high

It's been a week where Canadians have wondered what their financial future will bring, whether we will follow our neighbours to the south into an abyss of foreclosures, job losses and deep and long recession. With all of that emotional baggage to deal with, picking up a few hot deals on the stock exchange probably isn't on the radar for the majority of the Canadians.

The problem with the Prime Minister's advice is that it plays to the image of the Conservative party as the party of the rich, the kind of people that can afford to make a few wise deals during the beginning of what seems to be a financial Armageddon. It's not the club that the middle class family that is supposed to be the Conservative base can relate to, they with their mortgages, car payments, tax bills and education and medical expenses.

The Prime Minister's twenty three second sound byte with Peter Mansbridge could prove to be one of those watershed moments that turns an election.
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It already has given a remarkable bump to Stephane Dion's troubled quest to form a government. Suddenly making his disjointed campaign and platform a little easier to understand, a remarkable thing for a party that plans on spending billions of dollars on a variety of projects and programs.

While Harper's words have hobbled his party in the homestretch, they may also have sidelined the NDP's aspirations to climb over the Liberals into second place. With a rejuvenated Liberal party now getting a second wind in the final week of the campaign, those close races may not be so close anymore.
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Jack Layton's once almost cocksure belief that he will be Prime Minister on October 14th suddenly returns back to the fanciful thoughts of only the true NDP believers, an reminder that sometimes the loudest of partisan rhetoric, isn't quite as believable as the anticipated reality.

In the eyes of many of the political pundits, the main reason that the Prime Minister decided to go against his own bill of a fixed election date, was the impression that the economy was going to weaken into 2009 meaning the Conservatives needed to move quick to avoid any back draft from the expected financial decline.

The problem is that the schedule seems to have moved up pretty fast on Harper, catching the Prime Minister in the unenviable position of seemingly having to make up his economic policy on the fly. All played out as each day becomes more dire than the one before, as the economies of the world stumble and in some places seem to collapse.

Seeming to offer up as the best advice that it would be a good time to buy stocks, hasn't been a particularly reassuring bit of information for those that have a lot more to worry about than scouring the financial pages for a killer stock in a good price range.

The Liberals have managed to take what three weeks ago seemed like their weakest point in their campaign and suddenly made it a strength. Before the election, most observers of the Canadian political scene, even those that aren't particularly inclined to support Conservatives would have probably admitted that the economic agenda, was one firmly in the Conservative in box.

Especially when couched in those early days of the campaign and the wild spending plans of the opposition parties, who seemed to ignore the financial clouds on the horizon as they promised millions and maybe even billions for any number of things, over any number of years.

With less than a week until voting day however, that once solid plank of Conservative dogma, has been made rather wobbly, partly by external forces world wide and partly by a detachment by the Conservatives with the average Canadian, a rather concerned participant in the political process who is rightly worried about the winds of change blowing world wide.

The consensus now is that any hope of a Conservative majority government is probably long gone, returning us to where we were before the election call. With the Harper Conservatives still considered to be the likely minority government victor on Tuesday, but with a dramatically changed kind of atmosphere in parliament set to greet them should they win.

While the polling numbers were on the decline before the Prime Minister offered his off the cuff financial planning advice, he certainly provided a lifeline to the Liberals with his mis-step on the financial file. A singular moment showing a lack of empathy and certain sense of being out of touch with those same middle class families he courts every night with his television commercials.

What remains to be seen is whether it was enough of a lifeline for Stephane Dion, to send him and the Liberals over to the government side of the house in yet another minority government.

Below we found some points to review on what this next parliament may look like by Tuesday night.

Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail, October 8
Why Canadian politics will never be the same
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Lawrence Martin, Globe and Mail, October 8
And the winner is ... the party that cuts a deal
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Roy MacGregor, Globe and Mail, October 8
Revenge of the nerd: Dion's sudden comeback
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Roy MacGregor, Globe and Mail, October 8
This nasty, spiteful election is one to forget
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Lorne Gunter, National Post, October 8
A missed majority?
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Don Martin, National Post, October 8
A platform that might not be enough
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Andrew Coyne, Macleans, October 8
The only thing they have to fear