Iraq appears to be key to the Canadian economy. On balance, Canada’s CEOs and business leaders seem to be moving to the view that continued uncertainty may be jinxing the economy. Almost all foresee growth if Saddam is toppled quickly while few anticipate growth and many, contraction, if Saddam responds to a land invasion with environmental destruction or biochemical agents. Not surprisingly perhaps, there appears to be a slow decline in the number of respondents who believe that the present time or short-term future is a good time to re-invest.

Business leaders were asked to rate Finance Minister Manley’s new federal budget. Respondents gave the budget a mean score of 58%--a moderate score compared to other government-performance scores in COMPAS’ database of norms.

These are the key findings from the web-survey of CEOs and other business leaders conducted by COMPAS on behalf of the National Post under sponsorship of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

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