Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks Outline Dimensions of Economic Inequaity in
Canada

This is a summary of last nights seminar by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks on
economic inequality.  It was part of the Innis College, University of Toronto seminar
series: Public Good or Private Greed: Building a Democratic Society.

For more information about the series or the Progressive Academic-Activist
Collective, contact Doug Macdonald <[log in to unmask]> who kindly
provided this summary.

Linda McQuaig laid out the basic Canadian situation of wealth and income
distribution - inequality of market incomes has increased drastically over the past
fifteen years, but government transfers have held the distribution status quo,
until the last few years when we started to dismantle the welfare
state.

Demonstrating the essential nature of the state in terms of distribution of wealth.
Neil Brooks continued the theme by comparing OECD nations in terms of tax to
GDP ratio and any number of other social indicators, showing that higher tax rates
are combined with health, productivity, and almost all aspects of quality of life.

He demonstrated convincingly that the argument of the right that cutting
back government through tax cuts, as has been done here and as the
Globe and Mail is calling for federally, does not benefit the larger society, but
only the elite. His basic argument is that the rich should pay their fair
share of taxes, and that Canada should stop being one of only three
industrialized nations with no wealth inheritance tax.

We had about two hundred people out, and the series is off to a booming start.

Also - globalization has come to PAAC, as I guess it does to everybody in the end.
We just signed up our first US members - John and Iona Conner, from Grassroots
Cooperative in Clarksville, Maryland. They are starting an economic
democracy/cmty ec development business and will be attending our March 28 day
long session.




  ***************************************************
  From new transmitters came the old stupidities.
  Wisdom was passed on from mouth to mouth.
            -Bertolt Brecht
  ***************************************************

Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Acting Director,
Masters of Health Science Program in Health Promotion
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 101
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice:  (416) 978-7567
fax:    (416) 978-2087
e-mail: [log in to unmask]