In current issue of Policy Options
http://www.irpp.org/po/index.htm
PULLING APART — THE GROWING GULFS IN CANADIAN SOCIETY
Lars Osberg
Canadian society has become “increasingly unequal in recent years,” writes
Lars Osberg
of Dalhousie University. “While the poor became poorer, the rich have
become much
richer,” he writes, citing an absolute decline in provincial welfare
benefits for single
parents with one child. In oil-rich Alberta, such benefits in real 2004
dollars have fallen by
38 percent since 1986, while in Ontario they have fallen by 26 percent. If
our richest
provinces aren’t looking after their neediest citizens, including the
homeless at the
extremes of society, then these people’s situation is even more precarious
in the have-not
provinces. Yet Alberta, he writes, “is resentful of any suggestion for
sharing,” and Ontario
has become a demandeur, claiming a $23 billion shortfall from Ottawa. “The
policy
challenge,” he concludes, “is to establish and maintain ‘winning
conditions’ in which
citizens in all parts of the country would prefer to be part of Canada as a
political, social
and economic union.”
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