Category Archives: Society

Nov 29 2015
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Culture, Democracy, History, Society

One great heart, united

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It’s a truism that bears repeating: We all came from somewhere else. Canadians remember this to their credit as they prepare to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees this year and early next.

Of these, New Brunswick is on tap to resettle about 1,500 in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. In fact, all regions of this country are old hands at this form of humanitarian aid.

According to one federal government web site, “Our compassion and fairness are a source of great pride for Canadians. These values are at the core of our domestic refugee protection system and our Resettlement Assistance Program. Both programs have long been praised by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).”

The system works this way: “Refugees selected for resettlement to Canada have often fled their homes because of unimaginable hardships and have, in many cases, been forced to live in refugee camps for many years. When they arrive in Canada, they basically pick up the pieces of their lives and start over again.

“As a member of the international community, Canada helps find solutions to prolonged and emerging refugee situations and helps emerging democracies try to solve many of the problems that create refugee populations. To do this, Canada works closely with the UNHCR.”

Crucially, “Under our legislation, all resettlement cases must be carefully screened to ensure that there are no issues related to security, criminality or health. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) works with its security partners such as the Canada Border Services Agency to complete this work as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile, “Private sponsors across the country also help resettle refugees to Canada. Some are organized to do so on an ongoing basis and have signed sponsorship agreements with the Government of Canada to help support refugees from abroad when they resettle in Canada. These organizations are known as Sponsorship Agreement Holders. They can sponsor refugees themselves or work with others in the community to sponsor refugees. Other sponsors, known as Groups of Five and Community Sponsors, are persons/groups in the community who are not involved on an ongoing basis but have come together to sponsor refugee(s).”

All of which is to say that despite the appearance of cultural homogeneity along the East Coast, the Maritimes remains one of the most diverse and hospitable places in one of the most welcoming nations in the world for people in trouble. Well, most of the time.

“Even before the attacks in Paris last week, some Canadians were already chattering about security risks and the threat of insurgents sneaking through,” notes Robert J. Talbot, a postdoctoral fellow in history at the University of New Brunswick, in a recent piece for iPolitics. “Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, in particular, made political hay out of the crisis.”

But, Mr. Talbot adds, “the British refugees of two hundred years ago wanted the same thing that the Syrian refugees seek today: to settle down to quiet, peaceful and productive lives, for themselves and for their families. . .The year 1783 is far removed from the here and now, but the fact remains that many of us and our ancestors – my own Loyalist ancestors included – came here as refugees. French Huguenots fleeing religious fundamentalism, Iroquoian First Nations fleeing American expansionism, British Loyalists fleeing radical republicanism, Irish Catholics fleeing famine, German Mennonites (perhaps some of Brad Wall’s ancestors) fleeing Russian nationalism, Europeans fleeing fascism, Vietnamese fleeing communism, Kosovars fleeing ethnic cleansing, and now, Syrians fleeing suicidal nihilism.”

At the centre of this nation is a great heart that understands implicitly that these truisms do, indeed, bear repeating.

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Sep 21 2015
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Education, Humour, Personal History, Society

Are the kids actually all right?

Whence the minions came to me, seeking my munificence as laird of Bruce manor, I said unto them: “Daughters, kneel close, for I shall not sayest unto thee again.”

And so they did.

“Uh, Dad,” one queried, “What do you want?”

The other one, loaded with homework, merely uttered, “I don’t have time for this. . .Can you write me a letter, or something?”

I bellowed, as befits the King of the Castle, Nay! “Now here’s the deal: I command you both to become print journalists. In this way, you will carry on a valiant tradition – now three generations in the making – of making no money, subjecting yourself to the whims of editorial style, and becoming a self-loathing supplicant of various chain-store media flavors. Oh, and by the way, you should go to college poste haste, rack up enormous debt to prepare yourself for the life of which I speak, and spend the rest of your productive careers looking for good gigs interviewing rappers and garden ladies on CBC. Sound like a plan?”

Oddly enough, my minions don’t remember any of this – most likely because none of this actually happened, except, perhaps in my own feverish brain on a night when I had hoped that I would be heard, considered and then, finally, dismissed as any kind of example.

Indeed, if you read a recent RBC report you discover that “parents underestimate the influence they have over their children’s education. . . While 28 per cent of students say they chose the program they’re in to please their parents, only 21 per cent of parents think they have this influence. What’s more, when it came to deciding whether or not to go to post-secondary school, 10 per cent of students made this decision to satisfy their parents, but half as many parents felt the same.”

I’m reasonably certain that when I decided to go to Dalhousie University and study geology, physics and math in the late 1970s, it was not to please my artistically inclined, journalistically bent parents who – upon hearing my freshman-year course selections – could barely contain their mirth. As it happened, within a year, I had joined them in the general, family giggle.

Yet, I do remember my father and mother encouraging me to follow my dream, whatever it was, in my young life.

I also remember telling my own kids to do the same. One is now an analyst in early childhood education. One is a practicing veterinarian.

Says Mandy Mail, director of Student Banking at RBC Royal Bank: “From choosing which school to attend to selecting a program, students are making decisions to please their parents. It’s important for parents to maintain an open line of communication to ensure students are being thoughtful with their approach and to help ease the stress and encourage a more optimistic outlook on their future.”

Well, Mandy, with all due respect, that just sounds like another speech from another throne situated on a podium to which both students and their parents come to worship, hoping to score the bucks necessary to fill the banking industry’s notion of mortgage-worthy success.

Here, young ones, have another interest-free credit card. Do your university courses dovetail with our actuarial tables predicting income success? If so, have another credit card. Have three.

Come minions; come to us. We’re not your mum or dad. Worship at the feet of the real King of the Castle, mammon.

Unlike your parents, who love you unconditionally and support just about any direction you choose, we’re simply waiting at the crossroads.

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Sep 20 2015
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Government, Society

Trials by fire

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Rare is the politician who, recognizing the error of his or her ways, genuinely seeks to make amends.

That’s not to say that elected officials are loath to apologize for their statements or behavior. In fact, a tendency toward issuing unnecessary mea culpa passes in and out of political fashion with reliable frequency.

But an authentic reversal of policy in the wake of public criticism almost never happens unless an election looms. In New Brunswick, at least, another trip to the ballot box is years away.

And so it was, not long ago, that Premier Brian Gallant and Social Development Minister Cathy Rogers abandoned plans to dun relatively wealthy senior citizens in the province to help defray the cost of nursing home care for the rest.

“We will be cancelling the policy, pressing the reset button,” the premier said at a news conference in Moncton.

Added Ms. Rogers in a statement: “While the policy was designed to make care more affordable for the majority of seniors, it is clear that the announcement . . .caused a significant amount of concern for seniors. This was not our intention nor was it consistent with our priority of helping seniors and their families.”

In fact, methinks the not-quite-invisible hand of the minister had more than a little something to do with the premier’s change of heart. Indeed, his capitulation was not without a certain archness. “Taking this policy off the table,” he said, “does not mean our challenges go away.”

Still, Ms. Rogers’ background and sensibilities suggest she is more comfortable working with seniors to achieve at least some degree of consensus than dictating the terms of their surrender to economic realities in the province.

According to her official biography, she’s “a graduate of the University of New Brunswick with a masters and a Ph.D. in Sociology.” She served “14 years as professor at Crandall University and University of New Brunswick.”

What’s more, “With a policy focus on child and youth poverty, she understands the connections with health, education, crime, and the economy. (She) spent 18 years as a federal and provincial civil servant working in social development, industry, public safety, and economic development.

“She has been a lifetime advocate for prevention, support, and early intervention, and is concerned for the quality of life and well-being of vulnerable families. Honoured for her community service work by the YWCA Moncton in 2011 with a Woman of Distinction Award for Education, Training, and Development, she also received Stephen and Ella Steeves Excellence in Service Award from Crandall University in 2012.”

Given the complexion of her personal and professional achievements, inciting revolt among the province’s elderly – the fastest-growing demographic here ­– would not be an especially flattering footnote to her resume.

In truth, though, the whole idea of raising fees for some folks – a measly haul of maybe $1.6 million to government coffers – to help pay the costs of others, based on a largely arbitrary means test of personal wealth, was ludicrously provocative and unworkable from the get-go. Its only productive result has been to arm the opposition Tories with mud to sling, as Progressive Conservative leader amply demonstrated in his reaction to last week’s policy about-face: “The premier and the minister have bungled this from the start. They should have apologized to seniors for putting them through this for the past six months. Minister Rogers needs to take responsibility and resign.”

Of course, Minister Rogers needs to do no such thing. She will be far too busy continuing to make amends among the one voter block whose members still reliably line up on Election Day.

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Sep 20 2015
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Culture, Economy, Education, Society

How to enter the “thought-market”

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The vaunted academy is, let’s face it, not what it used to be – if it ever was.

I still remember college barkers gathering at my high school’s gymnasium in mid-1970s Halifax, pushing their various institutions’ alleged merits like so many army recruiters.

“If you want to be all you can be, then Saint Mary’s is the place for you, son. We’ll set you up for a real career in commerce, or applied basket weaving – whichever you prefer.”

Not so fast boyo, enthused the clean-faced man from Dalhousie’s development department (read: public relations):

“Have we got a deal for you. Take a full course load in business administration and you can be out and making money within 26 months – earlier if you opt for the co-op placement program.”

Row after row of pot-bellied, middle-aged men wearing bad suits and worse ties – refugees, I always imagined, from the advertising departments of local radio stations – would make the same pitch: A university education is only as valuable as the degree to which it advances your chances for material comfort later in life.

Do you want a good house, a fine car, a reliable job with a fat pension? Go to college.

Do you desire a thick retirement package, a gold watch at the end of your socially useful professional career, a rewarding set of hobbies you can afford to pursue? Well, then, by all means, sign on the dotted line, fork over a few hundred bucks, and you’re on your way.

I always likened these salesmen for academe to boatmen on the River Styxx, reaping young minds and sending them into their own, private Hades long before their time on this mortal coil was up.

The names of the barkers have changed, along with the body shapes and sartorial styles, but the message, alas, has remained largely the same: Higher education in this country, region, province is an economic imperative; not an intellectual one, certainly not a spiritual one.

In fact, it could be all three if governments, public and private school boards, and university administrators would agree to convene regularly to remind themselves that their true purpose is toproduce citizens who think critically, empathically and imaginatively about the world they inhabit and will, someday, lead.

Making kids “job-ready” in a marketplace where jobs change daily is a chump’s game. Making them “thought-ready”, on the other hand, is simply wise public policy. The fearless, innovative, cheerful and indefatigable will always change society ­– mostly, history demonstrates, for the better.

That means we must begin to remove the crypto-vocational aspects from the university system and return to courses and programs that build the intellectual muscle this planet needs to solve its direst problems – problems that a classical education in math, science, history, literature, and language directly address.

According to the recruiters at my high school, before the Internet made wiseacres of us all, I was a true disappointment. I chose a university course of study that mixed physical sciences with social ones (geology, biology, politics, philosophy, classics). I labored at it for years, failing, succeeding, failing again, and succeeding again.

When I was finally done, finally “job-ready”, I found that I was utterly unequipped to make the big salary, buy the big car, and live in the big house.

I was, however, “thought-ready”.

And the rewards have arrived apace, without force, as they have for my own children who cherish, above all, the notion that the critical knowing of things is the road to wisdom, even as the world does not always recognize the importance of either.

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Sep 20 2015
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Society, Trade, Wealth

An ode to our aging trades

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I sit on my front porch in the old west end of Moncton as the eastern sun threatens to set, and watch while two men who must be ten years my senior – 65 years each, if a day – rebuild the front of my neighbor’s house.

They take their time, because doing things right, plying the skills they were taught when they were young, doesn’t mean just something: It means everything.

“Now, that’s a handsome job,” I say as I gambol up the street to inspect.
“Well, thank you,” the man in the orange t-shirt replies.

“No, I mean it,” I say. “That’s a truly magnificent job.”

The man in the blue shirt looks at me as if I’ve never seen a job site before. I explain that I once worked for a master carpenter in Toronto, a long time ago, and nothing he ever did could compare to the work these guys were executing for their relatives in this time, on this street.

Would he and his partner be interested in replacing my back deck, I wondered aloud?

“Oh no,” they chime almost in unison. “We’re retired.”

More’s the pity; for as time marches on for this province, for this region of Canada, retirement seems especially poisonous to the long-term economic future of the body politic.

I long ago abandoned any notion of “retirement”. The concept seemed to me, as a small businessman and owner-operator, not only impractical, but also irresponsible. After all, if I manage to retain all the skills my particular craft demand, shouldn’t I be obligated to continue for as long as my physical and mental health support?

According to David DeLong, an American speaker and labour-force consultant, “Many executives today worry that skill shortages threaten their organization’s ability to grow and innovate. A recent survey I designed for one manufacturing sector found that almost 60 per cent of managers responding thought skill shortages were already hurting their firm’s productivity and quality.

“But, despite a seriously aging population in the U.S. and the rest of the industrialized world, only four per cent of this same group saw the aging workforce as an immediate threat to performance. Most expect the effects of aging Boomers to come 3-5 years. About 20 per cent don’t see the aging workforce as a concern at all.”

And, really, why would they?

Those of us who have survived one, two, three, four and five horrible recessions know a thing or two about surviving the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. In fact, in a weird and wonderful way, we relish these downturns.

We are young enough to recall what real fear feels like and old enough to remember how we overcame the daily terror.

Now, we “old folks” stand and deliver the lessons of experience – the tutorials necessary to bring a youthful, hopeful provincial government to heed the narrow truths behind its own broad rhetoric.

In truth, we will not prosper in the long range until will embrace the importance of small victories against the gathering darkness of global recession in the short range.

That means investing in the little enterprises whose owners – likely elderly folk who know a thing or two about surviving and thriving – are incapable of giving up, going dark and sending themselves into the retirement they say they crave.

“I’m really too old for this,” the man in the blue shirt says.

“Me too,” the man in the orange shirt says.

“So,” I say, “You’re done, then.”

The smiles arrive: “Oh no, we’ll be back. . .We will always be back.”

Aug 06 2015
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Environment, Personal History, Society

In the lemur cage

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Almost nothing incinerates in me that odd, albeit infrequent, mood of reticence more thoroughly than a ring-tailed lemur perching gamely on my shoulder.

To be sure, this was not how I expected my day to unfold when I grabbed my camera and headed out to the Magnetic Hill Zoo in the outer burbs of Moncton. My job was routine enough: Snap a few pics of the establishment’s manager, Bruce Dougan, for a magazine piece I had been writing.

Mr. Dougan, a burly man with an Arctic fringe of beard and a safari leader’s comportment, is a born showman. He has to be. Without an effective promoter at the helm, a zoo can become as endangered as many of the wild animals they house.

So, it really shouldn’t have surprised me when he led me into the lemur cage to pose with a handful of friendly, inquisitive primates. Suddenly, the joint was bustling with dozens of the human variety, their noses pressed against the chain-link fence, delighted to watch the photog struggle to regain control of his camera from the creature attached to his forearms.

I am a little embarrassed to admit that in the 20 years I’ve lived in Moncton I’ve only been to the zoo three times – two of those occasions within the past month (once with one set of grandkids; the other on the aforementioned photo assignment). Frankly, I really haven’t known what I’ve been missing.

On one of my trips, the line of young families and old folks waiting patiently for admittance stretched all the way to the far end of the parking lot. A recent CBC story provided the context when it reported in June that “The Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton is opening a $1.4-million exhibit that will showcase three big cats. Visitors will be treated to a new exhibit featuring two Amur Tigers – Alik and Anya – and a leopard, named Katushka.

“Jeremy Nelson, a board member of Friends of the Zoo and chair of the fundraising campaign, said the new exhibit is the biggest project the zoo has ever undertaken. ‘I can’t believe we’re finally here today. There’s not a person who won’t be wowed when they walk in,’ he said.”

Added Mr. Dougan, in a statement: “It’s amazing that we have two of the most endangered cats in the world right here in Moncton.”

I’m not sure “amazing” is the right word. After all, the city’s public website describes the facility thusly: “The Magnetic Hill Zoo. . .is committed to safeguarding animal species and raising public awareness of endangered species. The zoo is designed with the well being of the animals. . . in mind.”

What’s more, “The staff of the. . .zoo is very concerned with protecting endangered animals. They follow national protection movements closely and participate in diverse repopulation programs. The . . .zoo is the provincial headquarters for the Frog Watch program, an initiative of the Canadian Minister of Environment to gather environmental information on Canada’s diverse frog species. . .In 2010 and 2011, the. . .zoo worked in partnership with Parks Canada to implement the Piping Plover Recovery Program. Eggs from abandoned nests from two maritime National Parks were brought to the . . .zoo for incubation and hatching.”

Protecting endangered species – or at least raising awareness of them – appears to be in the zoo’s organizational DNA.

Still, Mr. Dougan’s amazement is well taken. It stands to reason that a city – whose latin motto “resurgo” means, in English, “rise again” – should boast a zoo where reticence is impossible – especially in the lemur cage

Jul 19 2015
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Culture, Employment, Society, Wealth

All hail a jobless future

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It is, perhaps, the paradox of our times: We are not happy when we work, and we are not happy when we don’t. Let’s just say we get used to both productivity and lassitude in equal measures.

We are, apparently, happiest (spoiler alert) when we do precisely as we please, which roughly breaks down as follows: Labouring a little bit, playing a little bit, goofing off a little bit, and sleeping. . .well, a lot.

Apparently, there’s actual research that backs me up and, in so doing, makes me feel far less guilty than I have for most of my adult life for the gazillion hours I have wasted in patently trivial pursuits.

Consider this month’s cover story in the Atlantic magazine (a certain tonic if anyone needed one at this time of the year, in this time of man and woman kind). In his piece, entitled, “A World Without Work”, writer Derek Thompson declares: “Futurists and science-fiction writers have at times looked forward to machines’ workplace takeover with a kind of giddy excitement, imagining the banishment of drudgery and its replacement by expansive leisure and almost limitless personal freedom.”

And, he says, “Make no mistake: if the capabilities of computers continue to multiply while the price of computing continues to decline, that will mean a great many of life’s necessities and luxuries will become ever cheaper, and it will mean great wealth – at least when aggregated up to the level of the national economy.”

But, then, of course, what do we mere humans do with ourselves? If we are, indeed, the demi-gods who invented machines to replace ourselves, to which plain of existence do we retire? Re-runs of “Happy Days?” Existentially, does this mean that God, itself, is officially dead?

Not necessarily. Says Mr. Thompson:

“One of the first things we might expect to see in a period of technological displacement is the diminishment of human labor as a driver of economic growth. In fact, signs that this is happening have been present for quite some time. The share of U.S. economic output that’s paid out in wages fell steadily in the 1980s, reversed some of its losses in the ’90s, and then continued falling after 2000, accelerating during the Great Recession. It now stands at its lowest level since the government started keeping track in the mid‑20th century.”

Moreover, he observes, “A number of theories have been advanced to explain this phenomenon, including globalization and its accompanying loss of bargaining power for some workers. But Loukas Karabarbounis and Brent Neiman, economists at the University of Chicago, have estimated that almost half of the decline is the result of businesses’ replacing workers with computers and software. In 1964, the nation’s most valuable company, AT&T, was worth $267 billion in today’s dollars and employed 758,611 people. Today’s telecommunications giant, Google, is worth $370 billion but has only about 55,000 employees – less than a tenth the size of AT&T’s workforce in its heyday.”

On the other hand, he concludes with some reason, people stripped of their workaday drudgery will find more creative pursuits to fill their time and what remains of their bank accounts.

We shall, in due course, become artists and artisans, tradesmen and craftspeople. We might even dance around the May pole, whenever winter decides to relinquish its icy grip, and plant food in the empty parking garages and vacant spaces where people once congregated to build their fateful remnant of civilization.

We may not be entirely happy with our new lot.

But, given our track record, I’m pretty sure we’ll get used to it.

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Jun 26 2015
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Culture, Society

Loose lips sink drips

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Some (possibly, even, most) men, regardless of their evident educational and professional achievements, simply don’t know when to shut up. Fortunately, daily journalism’s silly season – which starts right about now and endures till Labour Day – is made for such fine, upstanding company.

Consider, for example, Sir Tim Hunt, the eminent British biochemist, Nobel Laureate and Fellow of the Royal Society, on the subject of women. According to published reports, he had this to say at a science journalism conference in Korea last week: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. . .You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”

Naturally, having taken it on the chin in the Twitterverse for his “shockingly sexist” remarks, the good doctor quickly reversed himself – sort of. On BBC 4, he declared that he was “really sorry” for his commentary. “It was,” he admitted, “a very stupid thing to do in the presence of all those journalists.”

Still, he insisted, “It is terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without criticizing them. If they burst into tears it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth. Science is about nothing except getting at the truth and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes the science.”

Especially, it seems, weepy, willowy females.

But if members of the “fairer sex” don’t belong in the lab, can they find a home in the military? Indubitably, says Canada’s top soldier, General Tom Lawson. If, that is, they can negotiate around all the drooling, male Neanderthals in their midst.

Speaking to the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge last week, the Chief of Defence Staff – who retires later this year – decried the presence of sexual harassment and assault in the ranks. It is, he said, a “terrible issue” that “disturbs the great majority of everyone in uniform.”

It is also, he added, more or less inevitable: “It would be a trite answer but it’s because we are biologically wired in a certain way and there will be those who believe it is a reasonable thing to press themselves and their desires on others.”

Once again, the social media was swift to react, forcing the general to effectively revise, if not altogether redact, his observations. In an apology, he called his words an “awkward characterization. . .My reference to biological attraction being a factor in sexual misconduct was by no means intended to excuse anyone from responsibility from their actions.”

What is it about a microphone, a camera, a captive audience, and an opportunity to mouth off that makes ordinarily smart people say dumb things? Of course, situational foot-in-mouth disease is not an affliction exclusive to men, but a disturbing prevalence of tripe in the popular culture attributable to boys seems to be about girls.

There are, of course, consequences – sometimes serious – for issuing such banalities. The new debate du jour is whether Professor Hunt deserved to be forced from his positions at the Royal Society and University College London.

Arguing in a letter to The Times, celebrity biologist Sir Richard Dawkins declared, “Along with many others, I didn’t like Sir Tim Hunt’s joke, but ‘disproportionate’ would be a huge underestimate of the baying witch-hunt that it unleashed among our academic thought police: nothing less than a feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness.”

One wonders whether the good doctor got it only half-right. Sometimes, the boys in the lab also cry.

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Jun 02 2015
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Politics, Society, Wealth

Tory relevance is not retiring

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For strategic brilliance and tactical cunning, look no further than the Conservative Government of Canada. In an election year, these are the days that try the souls of federal Liberals and New Democrats, alike.

Against their own advice of only a year ago, the Harper Tories have executed a stunning reversal of policy in announcing that they will, after all, allow individuals to top-up their Canada Pension Plans (just in time, naturally, for the fall general election).

Said Finance Minister Joe Oliver last week: “To build on our current world-class system, we intend to consult with experts and stakeholders during the summer on options for allowing voluntary contributions to the Canadian Pension Plan.”

“However,” he added, “our government will not force Canadians into a mandatory, job-killing, economy-destabilizing, pension-tax hike on employees and employers. We believe that Canadians are best placed to decide how to save for their retirement with voluntary options, rather than have tax hikes imposed on them.”

That said, messing with the CPP – an arrangement between the feds and the provinces – would be a remarkable example of progressive politics for a party that has despised all such connotations in everything it has done to date.

And if this is not simply another vote-getting ploy – but an actual commitment should the Tories win another majority in October – it could amount to one of the biggest advances in social policy since Tommy Douglas tread the fair earth of western Canada so many decades ago.

Now, to be clear, a “voluntary” codicil to the current fed-prov agreement is a far cry from a “mandatory” requirement that employees and employers dig deeper into their pockets to fund old-age retirement benefits. It is not, for example, even close to the system that the UK currently enjoys – a system that tops up the state-benefit program with an ancillary fund that effectively raises the post-retirement incomes of low-wage earners to 40 per cent of the median, national average.

Still, it’s a start, and not a moment too soon.

Canada is facing a demographic crisis that all evidence suggests is leading the largest population cohort (those between the ages of 53 and 55) into structural poverty within 15 years.

Late-blooming equity accounts, overspending, debt restructuring, falling wage levels, winnowing economic opportunities for adult children, the various predations on retirement savings of capital markets – all have conspired to make a minefield of a future that once looked like the Elysian Fields.

Still, not everyone is convinced of the federal government’s good intentions. According to a Globe and Mail story, the NDP’s finance critic called the move a “deathbed conversion.” Indeed, he said, “you can tell when the government’s serious about something: They ram it through an omnibus bill. When they’re not serious about it, they launch a series of consultations.”

That’s fair enough. But what if – just this time – the Tories are serious about this thing of theirs; this entirely uncharacteristic overture to protect the future of the nation’s citizenry from the neglect and impotence that present-day capital markets promise routinely?

Even the remote hope that average wage-earners might obtain a measure of control over their retirement savings by plugging into a virtually fool-proof, government-guaranteed vehicle – as opposed to a predatory, capricious financial sector where certain public administrations actually pay criminally liable investment banks to stay afloat – is a genuine comfort to those who don’t occupy the one-per cent of the income population.

That’s why, of course, Mr. Oliver’s modest proposal is also masterful politics, timed like a bank vault on Canadian election time.

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Apr 03 2015
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Education, Politics, Society

No teen left behind

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Out of the goodness of its vote-conscious heart, the federal Conservative government has made child care a sturdy plank in its election platform this year. Noting that mum and dad are the “real experts” in raising a rug rat, the Tories have enhanced the Universal Child Care Benefit and Child Care Expense Deduction in 2015.

But what, in fact, does this mean?

In a report, released on Wednesday, Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Frechette, explains that “the value of child care benefits grew from $0.6 billion in 2004-2005 to approximately $3.3 billion in 2013- 2014. This amounted to three-fifths (59 per cent) of what Canadian families were spending on child care in 2013-2014.”

What’s more, he added, “Families with young children (less than 13 years of age) spending money on child care received two-thirds (66 per cent) of these benefits. The remaining 34 per cent was distributed to families with no child care expenses and families with older children. As a share of households’ aggregate child care expenses, federal benefits represented roughly 42 per cent and 247 per cent, respectively.”

Now, Mr. Frechette finds, following the government’s so-called improvements to the programs, “if Parliament approves. . .PBO estimates the fiscal impact of federal child care policies will increase to roughly $7.7 billion from the 2013-2014 value of $3.3 billion. By 2017-2018, it will grow to roughly $7.9 billion.”

Fair enough, perhaps. But here’s the kicker, says the PBO:

“These proposals would also change the allocation of benefits. In 2015, 49 per cent of these benefits would go to families with child care expenses and young children, and the remaining 51 per cent to families with no child care expenses and families with older children. Since families with young children spend more on child care, their share will only cover 67 per cent of the amount they will spend on child care. Conversely, benefits that families with older children will receive from the government in 2015-2016 will represent nearly eight times the amount they will spend on child care.”

So, while millions of Canadian families that might legitimately need some federal help to defray the costs of raising their pre-adolescents, millions more that don’t are getting a free ride on the taxpayers’ dime.

This, of course, makes perfect sense – but only in an election year. Under any other circumstance it’s a travesty of sound, sensitive and useful public policy.

None of which actually addresses the larger issue, which is: In what sober version of reality do the benefit and expense deduction, which transfer, at most, a couple of thousand dollars a year, per kid, to families’ household budgets, constitute rational social policy when the annual cost of effective, professionally delivered child care can, and does, runs 14 or 15 times the current federal contribution?

Seven or eight billion dollars would go a long way towards inaugurating a universal system of affordable (to families) early childhood education and pre-school programs. It’s certainly not brain surgery. No one is asking the feds to reinvent the wheel. Apart from the United States, effective models of this sort of thinking exist productively and happily across the developed world – even here in Canada, where Quebec’s $9-dollar-a-day child-care system has both enhanced educational outcomes and reduced systemic rates of poverty in that province. The more kids enrolled in such programs, the more mums and dads provide for their families’ material needs.

Of course, that’s a hard sell, especially as political campaigners begin to beat the drums loudly.

After all, 14-year-old junior needs his Xbox.

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