Jim Flaherty and Mark Carney had a pretty good plan to survive the Great Recession: Pump billions of dollars of stimulus cash into the economy and drive interest rates to near zero. What they didn't bank on was that two years later businesses and consumers would still be limping along, unable to pick up the baton.

As Ottawa and the Bank of Canada begin dialling back all their Keynesian spending, the economy is stalling. Businesses are reluctant to hire and invest - at least at home - and consumers are strapped and stressed. The high Canadian dollar is pricing exports out of key foreign markets, Canada's biggest customer is in even worse shape than we are and households are carrying worryingly high debt loads.

Read the entire Globe and Mail article here.