report available at http://www.policyalternatives.ca

Canada falls behind in social, economic areas

High-tax Nordic countries score better socially and economically than
low-tax anglo-American countries, especially the United States, according
to a Canadian social and economic policy think-tank, reported CanWest News
Service Dec. 6. Canada is falling behind a number of industrial nations in
a wide range of social and economic areas, says a summary of the report
being issued today by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives.

The study, an attack against the crusade in Canada for tax cuts, said
CanWest, compares four high-tax Nordic countries and six low-tax
Anglo-American countries, including Canada, on 50 social and economic
measures and finds the high-tax Nordic countries score better in 42 of
them. "By cutting taxes, the Conservative government is taking Canada in
the wrong direction," said economist Neil Brooks, a co-author of the study,
who teaches tax law at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. "It wants
to make Canada more like the United States, yet our findings show that
Americans bear severe social costs for living in one of the lowest taxed
countries in the world."

The US, with one of the lowest tax burdens in the industrial world, falls
near the bottom of industrialized countries in a strikingly large number of
social indicators, and ranks as the most dysfunctional by a considerable
margin, it added. "The tax-cut lobby has it backwards," said fellow
co-author Thaddeus Hwong, who teaches tax policy at the School of
Administrative Studies in York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional
Studies. "Not only do government social programs create a healthier
society, they also create the conditions for a vibrant – and competitive –
economy."

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