Ed Broadbent, one of Canada’s most respected progressive sages, sat down with the CCPA’s Trish Hennessy to talk about the Canada he grew up in and how it’s changed over his lifetime. During this candid conversation -- in Mr. Broadbent’s own Ottawa backyard -- he reflects on the profound shift away from equality. When he was growing up, he says, “the name of the game was to have more and more equality.” It was an unstated assumption, and it was accepted by all the leaders of the main political parties when he was first elected to Parliament. Since then, he says: “We’ve had a terrible assault on democratic equality. Equality has, since the Greeks, been the key value associated with democracy.” See the video of his full interview here.
New York Times writer Robert Frank says it's time to tackle the problems of income inequality in this article.
Bruce Livesey writes a blog in the Progressive Economics Forum showing the link between worsening income inequality and the threat of a Great Recession that could 'go on indefinitely'. Read the blog here.
Join us December 10th in Toronto for an evening with Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone. The CCPA is pleased to co-sponsor this event. Please see details here.
The World Economic Forum ranks Canada 20th in a global ranking of women's equality, slipping behind the United States. Read the story here.
He's written a string of best sellers, now one of North America's sharpest observers is taking on income inequality. He shows how our attitudes toward the gap between the rich and the rest of us have changed dramatically since the 1950s, when we were a more equal society. Check out the video here.
A new report by Toronto Community Foundation shows the gap between low and high income neighbourhoods in Toronto is growing while the middle class is shrinking. In 1970, 66 per cent of neighbourhoods were middle income. Today that number has shrunk to 29 per cent.
On the weekend the Globe and Mail wrote about income inequality in the U.S., with some Canadian observations as well.
Barrie McKenna writes: "Income is more evenly shared in Canada. But not by much, and the trend toward greater concentration at the top is identical. Between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, income inequality grew faster in Canada than in all but one of 17 leading developed countries."
And yet, he observes, "we don’t like to acknowledge inequality, in spite of its obvious link to poverty, crime and other social problems."
Read the complete story here.
The recession may be officially over, but six in 10 Canadians say they would be in financial trouble if their paycheque was delayed by just a week, according to a new national survey.
The survey coincides with an OECD warning that record high debt levels have left many Canadians vulnerable “to any future adverse shocks". Read the story here.
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— Kathleen Ruff, founder, RightOn Canada