10 seconds ago 2009-12-04T12:50:04-08:00
ST ANDREWS, Scotland (Reuters) – Proposals for a tax on financial transactions to fund the cost of future bank bailouts are unattractive, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Saturday.
British finance minister Alistair Darling said the UK would back such a plan if it received broad international support but Flaherty and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were skeptical.
"It's one of the ideas that's on the table, but is not particularly attractive to me as finance minister of Canada. We have been a government that has been reducing taxes,"Flaherty said.
Flaherty also said that a rise in Canada's jobless rate in October, which caused the Canadian dollar to weaken on Friday, simply confirmed the fragile economic situation.
"The job numbers don't surprise me. This is fragile, as I was hearing again in the room today. This is not a time for bullish confidence."
(Reporting by David Milliken)
