In case you missed it, Stephen Harper gave his “the sun will come out tomorrow” speech yesterday in Brampton, talking about how Canada will be the first country to come out of the recession.

While I’m not really upset by, or surprised at, the man’s eternal optimism (he is a Leafs fan, after all), Mr. “great buying opportunities” has long ago lost any shred of credibility at predicting how this recession will play out.

Oh, and since I know Jim Flaherty has trouble hearing economist predictions, he might want to turn his eyes to this:

Economists said they’re not forecasting Canada to recover significantly ahead of peers.

“That’s the part I am not so sure about. That’s certainly not what we forecast,” Toronto Dominion Bank chief economist Don Drummond said. “We see a fairly similar pace of recovery as the United States. In fact, under the great economic principle of what falls the most usually rebounds the fastest, the U.S. would actually have the advantage.”

Added BMO Nesbitt Burns deputy chief economist Douglas Porter: “I don’t think we’re going to be a quarter or two ahead of the U.S. I think we’ll turn at roughly the same time. And I don’t think we’re going to come flying out of this.”