Jack Layton

[Cartman]

You should read a little more about Sweden's social programs Hugo. They are far from a free ride. They instill personal responsibility far more so than do ours. Their programs, such as EI, are more generous, but are much more stringent in making you search out employment. You cannot just take your cheque and laze about. The result is that people are taken care of, but are more efficient at locating work. A good text?

Olsen, Gregg M. (2002). The Politics of the Welfare State: Canada, Sweden and the United States. Don Mills: Oxford.

[Cartman]

Actually, Canada does not publish ANY official figures on poverty and we do not have an official poverty line. The LICO is just a StatsCan guide for relative inequality; not a poverty line.

"Whenever a Canadian news outlet uses Statistics Canada numbers to say a certain percentage of Canadians are "below the poverty line," Statistics Canada makes it clear that its numbers say no such thing.

The agency sends off letters stating that its low-income cut-off (LICO) figures are not a measure of poverty, but of income inequality."

"The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development uses another relative measure of poverty. It takes all of the after-tax incomes in a particular country and finds the income such that half the people in the country make more and half make less. That's the median after-tax income. Anyone who makes less than half of that median income is considered poor. By that measure, Canada's poverty rate in the 1993-1995 period was 10.9 per cent. In the U.S., the rate is 16 per cent, while in Denmark, it's 4.7 per cent."

Here is a great CBC link about poverty.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/poverty_line.html

[Hugo]

You should read a little more about Sweden's social programs Hugo. They are far from a free ride.

You can say that again - for the Swedish taxpayer, that is. The most crucial thing to know about Swedish social programmes is that they are, in the words of the Swedish government, "unsustainable." This is why they are experimenting (successfully) with private healthcare and cutting social programmes and the public sector as fast as they reasonably can. Otherwise, they face economic collapse, possibly only a decade away.

Canada faces a similar situation. Romanow and Kirby both agree that Canada's healthcare system is, again in their own words, "unsustainable", for instance. Ralph Klein feels the system has failed so dismally he is threatening to go it alone and violate the Canada Health Act.

It takes all of the after-tax incomes in a particular country and finds the income such that half the people in the country make more and half make less. That's the median after-tax income. Anyone who makes less than half of that median income is considered poor.

I did not mention Canadian poverty rates. The method you show is very poor. For instance, if every single wage-earner in the country got an extra $10,000 p/a, the poverty line would not shift at all. Using the "real-world data" this method gathers, Slovakia measures at 2.1% and the Czech Republic at 2.3%, while the US measures at 16.9% and Australia at 14.3%. I know for a fact that Slovakia and the Czech Republic have far greater problems with poverty than either the USA or Australia.

The best way to get poverty line information is the internationally accepted method of determining costs of living by geographical area and household size and comparing them with purchasing power parity (e.g. what the local currency can buy). By that standard, the US poverty level in 1990 and 1999 was 13.5% and 11.8% (decrease). In Canada, 15.3% and 16.2% (increase).

[Cartman]

Well, I guess we must agree to disagree. I do think you should take a quick look at the link I provided. There is no internationally accepted method for measuring poverty. Officially, Canada does not even have one to offer. I would assume though, that the OECD method (which is what StatsCan also uses for international comparisons) is likely the most reliable method at the moment.

I am not a Keynesian and I certainly would not want to pay Swedish income tax rates , but I do believe that a wealthy nation must maintain certain standards. I believe that most Canadians cherish their social programs because they have served us well. Seriously, how would we get by without pubilc health care? Many would be ruined without it.