We don’t take pain into account when assessing where to invest health sector research and delivery dollars. That needs to change
Pain is a difficult topic for Canada’s health care sector. It can arise from many diseases, but not always. For example, arthritis in a joint can be visible on X-rays and not cause any pain; but it can also be so painful as to completely disable an individual. Pain is subjective, so sufferers can be…
U.S. households not only live with higher income inequality than in Canada but more than half are worse off in terms of purchasing power
Regardless of whether America is great, or about to be great again, a new analysis shows that Canadians outrank Americans on household income. The Economist magazine recently devoted a long section to a profile of Canada with frequent comparisons to the United States. Among the statistics highlighted were that Canadians’ life expectancy was three years…
More regular reporting on extreme weather patterns would help Canadians understand the real threat of climate change
The tornadoes that recently hit the Ottawa area can’t be blamed specifically on global climate change. But they are consistent with the long-predicted pattern of increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, highlighted in the most recent report of the International Panel on Climate Change. Unfortunately, too many Canadians still don’t believe that human activity…
To have effective policies, we need clear, understandable indicators for the most important dimensions of poverty
The federal government is to be congratulated on its just-released Poverty Reduction Strategy. The strategy, running to over 100 pages, endorses the idea of an official poverty line, relieving Statistics Canada from the impossible task of finding a purely statistical basis of definition. It further endorses the idea that poverty has many dimensions – including…
Having a clearly-defined poverty line enables a government to set targets and focus its policy agenda on effective change
Poverty is hard to measure. There are many aspects besides living on low income, including having disabilities or costly health problems, not being able to find decent housing, not being able to understand and communicate in an environment with increasing technological and legal complexity, and being unable to find nutritious food at reasonable prices. Still,…
It would be more prudent to make ongoing in-depth analysis of various facets of the tax system a full-time activity of the Department of Finance
On the same day that Finance Minister Bill Morneau clarified the federal government’s proposals to limit “income sprinkling” as a way for high-income owners of private companies to reduce their taxes, the Senate finance committee released its report recommending that all his tax changes should be scrapped. Instead, the committee recommended the government undertake an…
Almost absent in the debate about proposed Canadian changes are any voices defending the idea of tax fairness
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s proposals for tightening tax breaks associated with private companies is generating several kinds of response on social media and in mainstream media. The most evident is an impressive deluge of evidence-free rhetoric claiming that the proposals are an attack on everything from the middle class to maternity leave for female…
Proposed tax changes actually bring more fairness to the system, helping to close loopholes and eliminate back-door strategies to hide income
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau recently released a long-and-nervously-awaited discussion paper that was met with near apoplexy in some corners. That reaction is misguided. The paper is aimed at closing a number of loopholes where mainly rich taxpayers use private companies (Canadian-controlled private corporations or CCPCs) to reduce their taxes, compared to most Canadians whose…
Does Canada need to worry about the same festering malaise that has disrupted the United States?
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, as inarticulate and venal as it was, tapped into important and deeply-rooted American realities, realities that may also contain lessons for Canada. Does Canada need to worry about the same festering malaise that has become so dramatically evident in the U.S.? Powerful international data on income inequality offer significant insights. Branko…
What we really need is an evidence-based public conversation about the consumption and income needs of Canadian seniors
The C.D. Howe Institute released a study just in time for the recent federal-provincial finance ministers’ meeting, rolling out the tired old argument that as people age they don't need as much money. If only retirement were so easy. The study focuses on Canadian public servants’ pension plans in particular – including those of teachers…