Privately, people across the West Shore and Greater Victoria are watching their investments and retirement savings plummet in what the experts are finally calling a stock market crash.

Publicly, the Westhill’s development in Langford is the first major local development to feel the wrath of this collective global hysteria. Its gone into hibernation until the world becomes a happier place.

It’s easy to become unnerved with the confusing financial meltdown that spread like a plague from bad mortgages in the U.S. Last week the New York stock markets took worse hits than the major crashes in 1987 and 1929, losing some $8 trillion in wealth. Weeks before, the U.S. government effectively nationalized major lending institutions and bailed out big investment banks. The free-market-talking Bush administration breathlessly demonstrated that if enough people are reckless and greedy, help is on the way.

It’s frightening to see pieces of the largest economy in the history of the world was built on straw. The signs, though, were long coming.

Economists worried about the U.S. housing bubble bursting years ago, although few predicted it would precipitate global financial catastrophe.

In September 2006, Aquattro developer Peter Daniels told this newspaper bad lending practices put Americans far more at risk at defaulting on their mortgages than Canadians, and indeed he was right.

Much like in 2006, the economy in B.C. and Canada is on firm footing. The World Economic Forum ranked Canada as having the soundest banking system in the world — although that didn’t stop the federal government from swapping Canadian banks $25 billion in cash for the same in secured mortgages.

It’s going to be rough days ahead, but people are still working and jobs are still to be had across the Capital Region. People are worried but they aren’t panicking. Hopefully our provincial and federal leaders do the same.