More Topics - Blog

Some weeks I find politicking especially hard to stomach. The recent response to the situation in Attawapiskat makes it one of those weeks.

When the community of Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency, they weren’t asking for a cyclical public debate about who is to blame. They weren’t asking to be a tool to shame or prop up certain political parties. And they certainly weren’t asking to be painfully reminded of Canada’s colonial attitudes in the arrival of a third-party manager.

They were asking for survival. For water, blankets, shelter. Read more »

We know that the recession significantly increased Canada’s poverty levels. But do Canada’s poor now risk being permanently left behind? In this series of blog posts, we’ll explore the economic indicators, updating the research in CPJ’s 2010 report on the recession, Bearing the Brunt. Check back over the next few weeks for new blog posts on each indicator!

Housing is the biggest expense for low income Canadians who have been facing an increasing affordability squeeze over the past decade. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) considers housing to be affordable if a household is spending less than 30% of its gross income on housing. In 2006, 40.3% of all renter households in Canada spent 30% or more of their income on shelter. Read more »

Does Canada benefit from attracting wealthy tax dodgers to invest in local business while enjoying the low tax rates of the “Switzerland of the North?” A story by Macleans business writer Jason Kirby this week argues that Canada should avoid the urge to tax the wealthy because these “Golden Geese” bring with them innumerable economic benefits. The article highlights how Canada’s comparatively low personal and corporate income tax rates, combined with its lack of inheritance or gift taxes, appeal to those super-rich who are tired of paying higher taxes elsewhere.

But while Macleans is singing the praises of low taxes for the high income, other business voices are sounding a message of concern about growing income inequality. In January, the Risk Report of the World Economic Forum called increasing wealth and income disparities a significant concern, linking the rising disparity to the evolution of most other global risks. Min Zhu, a special advisor to the Director of the International Monetary Fund, told the Forum’s gathering in Davos that “The increase in inequality is the most serious challenge for the world.” Read more »

Last month I participated in a press conference on behalf of Canadians for Tax Fairness, arguing for fairer taxes instead of service cuts. A reporter called me afterward and asked me if tax cuts weren’t necessary to ensure economic growth. “Oh no,” I assured him. “The Finance Department’s own calculations show that investing tax revenues in public services that Canadians need has a higher rate of economic return than tax cuts.”

My answer was true, but I nonetheless wondered later if I had in fact given the right answer. The reporter’s question assumed that economic growth was so important that we should do anything to achieve it – even lose valuable public services for the sake of cutting taxes if tax cuts were necessary to stimulate growth. My answer to him accepted this assumption. Read more »

In 2007, CCPA-BC economist Marc Lee studied tax incidence in Canada and discovered that our tax system had become an inverted u-shape, with middle-income Canadians paying the highest proportion of their income in taxes and the richest Canadians paying the lowest proportion of their income in taxes.

Yesterday, CCPA-BC released an even more disturbing report – a study of tax incidence in BC reveals that the tax system in BC is downright regressive. Not only does the richest 20% of British Columbians pay the smallest proportion of their income in tax, but the poor pay the highest! This shift has taken place over the last decade as the province has cut income taxes (which are still modestly progressive) and increasingly relied on regressive sales taxes. Read more »

Don Drummond had a bit of a strange op-ed in the Toronto Star on Sunday. On the one hand, he acknowledged the debate over the option of corporate tax cuts and called for the impact of cuts to be monitored so that we know whether or not they are actually delivering on their goals. On the other, he reviewed and dismissed all of the arguments against corporate tax cuts as negligible. Read more »

My mother-in-law passed me Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges, saying “You just have to read this one.” The next day, before I had even had the chance to crack the covers, Bob Goudzwaard referenced the book twice in his AGM speech, calling it “a most excellent little book.” With two such ringing endorsements, I could hardly put off reading the book. And having done so, I would echo Bob Goudzwaard: it is indeed a most excellent book.

Empire of Illusion is a stinging indictment of our celebrity-obsessed, narcissistic culture that has lost sight of how the values we preach have been perverted and replaced with consumerism, corporatism and militarism. Hedges laments the state of democracy, the power of corporations and the wealthy, the growing class divide, the unwillingness or inability of our elites to stop the slide, and the illiteracy and obsession with illusion over reality that prevent most of us from identifying the problems. Read more »

The Basic Income Earth Network Newsflash arrived in my mailbox this morning, and I was surprised to learn that one of the candidates pursuing the French presidency in the 2012 election is basing his campaign on a citizen’s income, also known as a Guaranteed Livable Income. And not just any candidate: former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, best known for his opposition to the Iraq war as France’s Foreign Minister in 2003.

I went to school in France for a year and a half and witnessed a historic presidential campaign up close, and I have retained a fascination with French politics ever since. The French political system is quite different than the Canadian system, with an elected President who selects the Prime Minister who may or may not be elected him/herself. Read more »

The OECD released a report last week highlighting the rapid growth of inequality in Canada and other rich OECD countries. The report covers the period from the mid-1980s to the late 2000s, meaning that this rapid growth of inequality took place during a period of strong economic growth. In other words, trickle down is a complete and utter failure – it’s led to the rich getting richer, not to a rising tide that lifted all boats.

The OECD report offers several reasons for the rapid growth of inequality. Not surprisingly, distribution of salaries and wages is primarily responsible (that’s not hard to figure out when the best paid CEOs make 155 times more than the average worker). This also reflects the growing trend of precarious labour, in which nearly one-third of jobs are low paid, part-time or temporary, offering few or no benefits, and provide no job security. The OECD report identifies globalization as a driver of change in employment structure impacting wages. Read more »

The Globe and Mail has an excellent article today looking at the costs of poverty and the social and economic benefits of fighting poverty and income inequality, "How paying people's way out of poverty can help us all." In particular, the authors look at the issue of widening inequality and the political unrest it can cause, concluding "Despite Canada’s reputation for a strong social safety net, the country is becoming economically polarized. And the decades-old dominant economic dogma that growing wealth among society’s highest earners would trickle down to those less fortunate is being challenged by an alternative approach: Eliminate crushing poverty among the lowest earners, and wealth will trickle up." Read more »