Canada: The Amazing Mendicant

At election time last June. Canada was in a mess. The country's stock markets plunged downward in Wall Street's wake; the once proud Canadian dollar fell to 92½ U.S. cents, and Canada's foreign exchange holdings fell nearly 50% to a scary low of $1.1 billion. Six days after the election, in which the Conservatives remained in power, but as a minority government. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker suddenly put on the country's most stringent austerity since 1947. Canadian Historian Bruce Hutchison mourned that Canada was "brought to the rim of ruin . ....

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