Jan. 04, 2012 - Issue #846: Year in review
Vuepoint
Top priority: equality
Though 2011 was a year of upheaval around the globe, 2012 has dawned on a Canada still fundamentally and perennially unfair. Amongst news that Canada's top CEOs make as much by noon on the first day of the year as the average worker makes over the course of the next 364—nearly $45 000 in three hours work—the wealth disparity in this country continues to grow.
This disparity is spurred on by the deliberate actions of the various levels of government in this country. Federal corporate taxes have been lowered every year for the last five—dropping from 22 percent in 2007 to 15 percent this year—but, as unemployment sits at 7.4 percent, Canadian corporations have yet to receive the memo about how to trickle down the windfall to the pockets of average workers. In fact, large reserves of cash—$583 billion Canadian and $276 billion in foreign currency—currently sit in the coffers of Canada’s corporations. Will these reserves be used to fund executive bonuses or new jobs? History holds they will do the former.
Meanwhile, even as time runs out on oil production in Alberta—that "black gold" can't last forever, though you'd never know it the way the Progressive Conservative government continues to view "economic diversification" with the same paranoia as it does sexual diversity—the provincial government continues to lose out on potential billions in oil and gas royalties because of its sweetheart deals in the tar sands. Oil executives and oil companies get rich while the owners of the resource—Albertans—are saddled with not only the environmental impact of such a destructive oil-production method, but also the consequences of a resource-based economy that will run out of resources: no savings, no opportunity.
The low-tax, business-first mantra of governments in this country must end. Twenty years of business-first government got Canada to this point: high unemployment, a disastrous track record on the environment, a wealth gap that is at its highest level ever and growing, and ever-increasing consumer debt.
Putting people first in our democracy, treating Canadians as citizens instead of consumers, would go a long way toward restoring the sense of balance Canada sorely lacks. Increasing corporate taxes and oil royalties, using the money raised to fund education, health care and economic diversification and taking measures to raise wages of the average worker in this country ought to be Canada's New Year's resolutions.
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