A Just Society?
Sep 22nd, 2011 | 6 responses
The phrase was Pierre Trudeau’s, and it caught on. Canadians like to think of themselves as citizens of a Just Society. Certainly, they believe, things are better here than in the United States. But, Carol Goar wrote recently, we have been emulating our southern neighbours. In fact,
Since the mid-1990s, income inequality has been rising faster in Canada than the U.S. They’re still in top spot, but we’re catching up. Our Gini index, which measures income equality, rose by 9 per cent over the last decade. Theirs increased by 4.7 per cent.
And that conclusion is based on old numbers:
It is based on six-year-old statistics. But all of the indicators suggest the trend is accelerating. Since 2005, our tax system has become more regressive, our social services have shrunk, our manufacturing base has deteriorated and we’ve gone through a painful recession that hit the poor hardest.
When Trudeau retired, Canada’s tax system became more regressive:
Until 1988, we had 10 income brackets. Then the government of Brian Mulroney “flattened” the tax system, leaving three brackets. It was a welcome change for the rich whose marginal tax rate dropped from 34 per cent to 29 per cent. Everybody else got tax credits to ease the transition. Subsequent prime ministers made the system more regressive by reducing the taxation of capital gains, cutting corporate taxes, offering tax breaks to the wealthy and creating lucrative investment incentives.
And nobody is talking about it. In the last federal election, none of the parties talked about income inequality. They are not talking about it during Ontario’s election. It seems to have become a fact of life.
When politicians become courtiers for the wealthy, the poor and the middle class become peons.
Owen Gray grew up in Montreal, where he received a B. A. from Concordia University. After crossing the border and completing a Master’s degree at the University of North Carolina, he returned to Canada, married, raised a family and taught high school for 32 years. Now retired, he lives — with his wife and youngest son — on the northern shores of Lake Ontario. This post is cross posted from his blog.
6 Responses to “A Just Society?”
I guess you guys aren’t so French after all
Of course the parties aren’t talking about it — they might have to address the disparity when it comes to subsides. Liberals tend to concentrate on the tax code, but there’s a lot more fun and profit in spending and regulations.
I am not sure what exactly you mean ProfElwood. Are you saying that subsidies, spending and regulations have increased the income disparity more than making the tax code more regressive? That is an interesting idea but I can’t actually see it. Please explain it.
It seems to me that rather than making a point you are throwing out the current ‘things that are bad’ words hoping that something sticks. If that is the case I think you missed ‘entitlements’ and a reference to the UN, neither being especially relevant but on par with the ones you did pick.
If we are going to talk about other policies that contributed to the growing income disparity in the United States other than making our tax system more regressive, I think we have to talk about those policies that intentionally suppress the wages of the lower 98% of the workers. These include suppression of the unions, letting the minimum wages purchasing power slip, enacting disadvantageous trade agreements, reducing the number of workers who qualified for mandatory overtime pay, letting unemployment payments slide lower due to inflation, reducing buy American clauses of Federal contracts, making it easier for corporation’s to hide income overseas, reducing or eliminating people who qualified for welfare, etc.
How does the wealth disparity/Gini Index compare between Quebec and Anglo-Canada?
Quebec Society is less unequal
Among regions in Canada, Quebec is a leader in the fight against poverty and inequality
Thanks very much for the information. Quebec’s provincial governments have tended to be more social democratic than other provincial governments — perhaps because Quebecers see their government as the protector of their language and culture in an English North America.
As a result, Quebec has run larger deficits than its other provincial cousins, in support of such things as low cost daycare, affordable university tuition etc.
At the same time, Quebecers have always admired their American neighbours. The Quebec premier who first proposed independence — Rene Levesque — spent the Second World War as a journalist with the American army.
He was fluently bilingual.
@Merkin
Yes, I’m saying that a lot of the spending and regulations (loose interpretation of the word) also cause disparities. The creation of the Fed, for instance, allows a large amount of money to be loaned out for profit by the banks, with larger banks getting first dibs. Most agricultural subsidies go to corporate farmers who make over $250,000 per year. Government supported monopolies and liability limits don’t help the common worker. The power granted to the AMA is used to ensure an artificial shortage of doctors, which is why they make twice as much in this country as in other countries. Then there’s the ongoing bailouts . . .
Well, you get the idea. Changing the tax code isn’t going to fix any of that.