May 9, 2000
Kamloops Daily News


If these are the good times, I don't want to know the bad. 
Somebody is making a lot of money, but it isn't middle class
Canadians.   Stock markets are soaring, economic indicators
are up, but it's the rich who are getting obscenely rich.    

Middle class Canadians are  working harder, but even with
two wage earners in a family they are sinking deeper into
debt.  Household debt soared alarmingly by 14 percent in the
last decade, according to the Vanier Institute of the
Family. Canadians vainly try to maintain a life style they
once enjoyed as children when their parents were relatively
well off.  They dream of a life of conspicuous consumption
that they see  on American television, a life now beyond the
grasp of most Canadians and Americans.

The incomes of middle class Canadians are slipping away.
Family incomes dropped 6 per cent from 1989 to 1998.  This
was a time in which things were supposed to be getting
better -- the recession of the early 1990s was over.

But try as they might, middle class Canadians are becoming 
sucked towards either the extreme pole of poverty, or for a
very few at the opposite end, riches.  As they struggle to
live the dream, preparation for retirement is sacrificed. 
Savings dropped from 10 to 1.5 per cent of after tax income. 
Their lost standard of living aches like a phantom limb, a
way of life permanently severed. They want answers to the
aching loss in their standard of living.

An easy target of their grief is taxes -- a cure promoted by
the rich, who have the most to gain by tax cuts.  But taxes
actually fell slightly in the 1990s, says the Vanier
Institute (measured constant dollars). The Tax Revolt should
be an Income Revolt, but many Canadians have bought into the
mythical benefits of lower taxes.  The billions of dollars
of tax reduction announced in the recent federal budget will
only amount to a few hundred dollars per person, annually.

No, taxes are not the culprit in the drift towards the
bottom . The main reason for the loss in standard of living
is a drop in wages, which fell relative to inflation. 
Unions participated in the national cause of debt reduction
though lower wage demands.  Minimum wages dropped in
constant dollar values.  There was a shift from permanent,
well paying jobs to part time and  short-contract jobs, and
a resulting loss in benefits.  More health care paid out of
the employee's pocket.

Taxes are way of keeping the poles from widening. The plight
of low income families has worsened as a result of reduced
transfer payments to the provinces from the federal
government.  Now that we have a budgetary surplus, more
money should be provided in the form of unemployment
insurance, universal day care, and other transfers to low
income Canadians. 

As the middle class slipped into the ranks of the working
poor, the poor slipped into the ranks of the destitute
homeless.  This was especially true in large cities,
according to the Canadian Council on Social Development. 
Poverty jumped by the greatest amount in Canada's largest
cities: Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. 

The faces of the poor are easily recognized.  The greatest
numbers are single mothers, followed closely by recent
immigrants,  urban aboriginals, elderly women, and children. 
I would have thought that in a country that loves children,
Canadians would gladly pay taxes that goes to see them
decently clothed, fed and sheltered.

They urban poor are soon to be joined, I suspect, by farmers
abandoned by an uncaring government who is not concerned at
all to see them plowed under by global free trade.  Other
countries are prepared to subsidize a rural life, but the
prime minister's classic shrug seems to say, "let them eat
dirt".

If you can't find a compelling social or moral reason why
tax dollars should help the poor, think of it in practical
terms.   As poor Canadians resort to crime, the cost of
policing, the court systems and incarceration increases. 
Think about the lost productivity of those millions of
people who are not doing useful work that could benefit
themselves and society as a whole. 

The good times roll, it seems, to the beat of a funeral dirge.

go back to my Columns in the