A Little Hard To Swallow

Despite the fact that I think and write a great deal about the disparities and inequities that plague our society, I am almost embarrassed to admit that until now, I had never heard of something called The Big Mac Index, launched, according to a recent article in The Star, in 1986 as a “lighthearted guide” to global purchasing power.

While its original purpose was as a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible, it has also become a barometer of purchasing power. In Britain, for example, which currently has a minimum hourly wage of ₤6.70, it would take 26 minutes of minimum wage labour to buy a Big Mac. That country has a target minimum wage of ₤9 by 2020, at which level it would take only 18 minutes to make the purchase. How does this compare with other countries?

Denmark is well ahead of the pack at a current 16 minutes. Australia: 18 minutes. France: 25 minutes.

Canada? A chart in the Financial Times shows our country at 33 minutes, which closely equates to a minimum-wage worker in Toronto, at $11.25 an hour, paying $6.10 for two all-beef patties, special sauce, etc. That same worker can look forward to a Dickensian 15-cent-an-hour increase come October.

This is not good, and our country could ultimately become an unenviable outlier when it comes to fair compensation, since the movement for increasing the minimum wage is gaining momentum in many jurisdictions:

Last Thursday, California passed a six-year phase-in to a $15-an-hour minimum wage — a landmark achievement as it’s the first state-wide success in the country. Seattle started its phase-in a year ago, with a $15-an-hour target set for Jan. 1, 2017. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who spent part of the winter travelling around in a “Fight for $15” branded bus, saw his push for a statewide $15 minimum watered down Thursday, but scored significant gains nonetheless, including a three-year phase in to $15 in New York City from the current $9.

Such increases are to be embraced, not opposed. As I noted recently, California's goal of increasing its wage will raise the incomes of 30 to 40% of workers in that state.

But what about all those fraught cries that such moves will result in massive job loss? According to Britain's Low Pay Commission, and as reported by The Star,

the commission wrestled with the predictable “job killer” charge — that businesses facing increased costs will flee or retrench, hurting vulnerable workers the most.

The “range of evidence,” the commission found from more than 140 research projects, was that the national minimum wage “has succeeded in raising pay for workers without damaging employment or the economy.”

While most past increases have admittedly been more gradual and modest in scope, the Commission

points out that businesses have previously worked around increased payroll costs by a variety of measures, including reducing non-wage costs or increasing productivity.

And there is one more thing that neither the Commission nor critics consider: the likelihood that the vast majority of people will not object to paying a little more for their products since it will allow their fellow-citizens the opportunity to conduct their lives with a little more dignity and a little more security.

Who could argue with that?

The Lord May Move In Mysterious Ways

... but I wish He would choose better messengers:

The Outrage Continues

In the weekend Star, Tony Burman gave five reasons that Canada should cancel the Saudi arms deal, an immoral agreement which the Trudeau government refuses to budge on. I will simply give the headings of his arguments here:

1. Canadians oppose it

2. Canada is being bought off

3. Saudi Arabia is an awful regime

4. Canadian arms are undoubtedly killing innocent people

5. Canada’s arguments have no moral core

In response to that column, Star readers offer their views:

Canada must cancel the contract selling armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Yes, let's pay the agreed upon penalties. Canadians are not so venal as to be ready to sell the lives of thousands of people, and in the process, sell their souls for a handful of coins.

Better to pay the penalty for cancelling the sale than the ones implicit in the ratifying of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In the latter case Canada will be liable to pay corporations that deem to be shortchanged by enacting legislation to redress old wrongs, like First Nations inequalities or environmental protection.

Canada should cancel this deal with Saudi Arabia and not ratify the TPP. We expect this government to deliver on the profound human values that have been a hallmark of Canada.

Bruna Nota, Toronto

Once again Tony Burman masterfully and succinctly provides us with an excellent and well-reasoned article on this very serious and important topic. Is our government listening?

As a Canadian and member of the Liberal party I call upon the government to reconsider the Saudi arms deal. Do we really want the blood of those weapons when used on our hands? Is this what Canada stands for? I think not. While this is a complex issue, there is a line to be drawn in the sand.

Canada is not “back” when it sells out its moral fiber with such a deal.

Janice Meighan, Toronto

Mr. Burman provides five compelling reasons why Canada should kill the $15 billion arms agreement with Saudi Arabia. Here are two more:

1. Canada may have bypassed its own tough weapons export control laws to ink this deal. In doing so it circumventing its own rule of law and due process.

2. Canada needs to bring Saudi Arabia's extremist theological and financial support for groups like Daesh, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the like to light rather than trying to gain from it.

Ali Manji, Thornhill

Unfortunately, given the obdurate stance of the Trudeau government, it is doubtful that any of these compelling points will move any of our representatives' hearts and minds on this very important issue.

A Little Bit Of Justice

Just when I fall into despair that justice will ever prevail, the gods send me a small bone:

Former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro lost his appeal of his election overspending case and was taken away to jail Tuesday, after an Ontario judge found he had committed offences that “strike at the heart” of the democratic process.

Del Mastro was convicted in the fall of 2014 for violating the Canada Elections Act during the 2008 election and was sentenced last summer to a month in jail.

Justice Bryan Shaughnessy, who heard Del Mastro’s appeal in Oshawa, offered this grave assessment of the latter's sins:

“Violations of the election spending limits and deliberate and concerted efforts to evade compliance with the honest and truthful reporting of contributions and expenses, such as occurred in this case, is a serious affront to our democratic system of government and fairness of our election process,” he said.

“The offences that Dean Del Mastro committed … are serious and do strike at the heart of our democratic electoral process.”

Never, I suspect, has there been a better poster boy for the morally-depraved universe of the Conservative Party that existed under Harper, a legacy that may well-resist the party's current attempts at renewal.

Lest We Forget

The Star's Tim Harper reports that Kellie Leitch, one of the robotic but very malleable mainstays of the former Harper regime, has become the first declared candidate for the Conservative Party's leadership.

I hope no one forgets her appearance with Immigration Minister Chris Alexander during the Conservatives' desperate and divisive bid to hold on to power during the last election. She and Alexander made a good team, given that both are singularly devoid of even a shred of personal integrity:

The Panama Papers

Marie over at A Puff of Absurdity offers a very good overview of something that is certain to have long-lasting reverberations, The Panama Papers. Be sure to check out her post.

The Toronto Star reports the following:

In the largest media collaboration ever undertaken, more than 370 journalists working in 25 languages dug into 11.5 million documents that revealed Mossack Fonseca’s [a Panamanian law firm renowned internationally for establishing shell companies] inner workings and traced the secret dealings of the firm’s customers. The more than 100 news organizations involved shared information and hunted down leads generated by the leaked files using corporate filings, property records, financial disclosures, court documents and interviews with money laundering experts and law-enforcement officials.

Significantly, the only Canadian media organizations to participate in the consortium undertaking this massive investigation are The Toronto Star and the CBC/Radio Canada. At least someone in our country is concerned about the public good.

Why is this such an important investigation? First and foremost, it identifies a panoply of individuals and companies whose main motivation is tax avoidance. Their allegiance to themselves and, in the case of corporations, their shareholders, is paramount.

It should be stressed here that the vast majority of those involved in these schemes are doing nothing illegal, merely taking advantage of loose tax laws that permit such avoidance. But to me, this points to an incontrovertible truth about some wealthy individuals and many corporations: they feel no obligation to pay the country of their residence their fair share of taxes. In other words, they are putting their own financial security and profits above the land that nourishes and hosts them, the land that provides them with an educated workforce and the infrastructure that make their wealth possible.

And that should serve as a cautionary tale of great magnitude as we contemplate, for example, signing both the CETA and TPP free trade deals. The Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions of such trade agreements give priority to corporations over state sovereignty so that should a country's laws impinge upon a company's profits, that company can sue the government. Given that The Panama Papers will confirm that loyalty and patriotism are concepts foreign, indeed, inimical, to those who pursue profit at almost any cost, there is surely reason for real caution.

The investigation is a wake-up call for governments to amend tax laws that in fact aid and abet theft from national treasuries. Here at home,

... Canadians have declared $199 billion in offshore tax haven investments around the world, according to Statistics Canada.But experts say that figure is a small fraction of the Canadian offshore wealth that goes undeclared.

The precise annual cost to Canadian tax coffers is unknowable. But credible estimates peg Canada’s tax losses to offshore havens at between $6 billion and $7.8 billion each year.

One need not have an especially rich imagination to consider how an increase in federal coffers of that size could be used for the benefit of all.

Every so often, thanks to circumstance and the indefatigable efforts of investigative journalists, the curtain is pulled aside and we are able to get a peek at an underlying and ugly reality. Ours is a world in which selfishness and evil often prevail, thanks to the complicity of far too many and the shield of darkness behind which much of this takes place.

Perhaps The Panama Papers can help to bring some much-needed light and eventual reform to this shameful and unjust state of affairs.

UPDATED: Pondering The Precariat

California, as you have likely heard, is raising its minimum wage to $15 by 2022. Although the efficacy of the increase is being hotly contested, with some claiming it will lead to substantial job loss and others citing studies that show just the opposite, the fact is that it will raise the incomes of 30 to 40% of workers in that state. And that statistic alone underscores the plight of the working poor and the precariously employed, not just in the U.S., but also in Canada. In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, for example, those employed in part-time, contract and temporary work is an astonishing 52%.

Those are statistics we can no longer ignore.

In a good and prescriptive editorial, The Toronto Star makes some solid arguments for both governments and unions to be much more involved in ameliorating this abysmal situation. It suggests that the federal government needs to do the following:

- Enhance the Canada Pension Plan. Precarious workers at the bottom of the rung have little opportunity to save for retirement.

- Make Employment Insurance benefits easier to get. Precarious workers may not work long enough in temporary jobs to receive them, or the benefits may run out long before they have found a new job.

- Create a national pharmacare program. Canada is the only country with a universal health-care system that fails to cover the cost of prescription medicine. Right now 85 per cent of those earning less than $10,000 and 70 per cent of those earning between $10,000 and $20,000 — in other words, precarious workers on the bottom employment rung — don’t have an employer-provided health plan.

- Create a national, affordable child care system that will enable parents to take on new jobs when they’re offered.

There is a role for provincial governments as well. Ontario, where one in eight workers makes the minimum wage, can do the following:

- Raise the minimum wage to at least $12 an hour, and aim for $15. As one economist put it, the current minimum wage of $11.25 “falls far short of any suggested benchmark: productivity gains, the average industrial wage, the living wage, or the poverty line.”

- Beef up the Employment Standards Act to require employers to give paid sick days, ensure temporary workers are paid the same rate as fulltime workers doing the same job, and follow the example of Australia, where casual employees must be paid 15 to 25 per cent above minimum wage to compensate for having fewer benefits.

- Enforce the Employment Standards Act with more inspections and follow-up fines and charges. Companies in violation of the act should be ineligible for government contracts.

Unions can help as well, by reaching

out to precarious workers in temporary and part time positions and represent them on issues from wages and scheduling to minimum hours per week.

There are all kinds of arguments brought forth on a regular basis to oppose many progressive measures such as minimum wage increases, ranging from job loss to having to pay more for goods and services. The issue of job loss has been studied, with some finding it decreases employment and others finding no such effect.

However, it seems to me that there is only real question to be asked, and Canadians are in a unique position to answer:

Are all of us are willing to pay a little more, be it through taxes or the cost of goods and services, to ensure that all of our fellow citizens' lives are defined by much more than quiet but deep desperation?

UPDATE: Although not discussed in this post, another redistributive policy approach gaining a fair amount of traction is the guaranteed annual income, about which I have written many times on this blog. Canadian Dimension has a very interesting piece on the concept and its possible negative consequences if not implemented correctly. Click here to read it.