Neo-liberal approach a dead end
Re Canada’s latest challenges need new thinking, Opinion Dec. 26 Eugene Lang’s call for another major look at the role of government in Canada, similar to the Macdonald Commission’s report of 1985, is a great piece, well argued and bang on.
However, I believe Mr. Lang could have added a fifth policy frontier to his list — infrastructure, both new (transit, transportation, health, Ring of Fire) and the infrastructure deficit in such areas as public housing, education, roads, bridges, water and sewer.
The argument against putting the dollars needed to deal with this issue is that paying for it would either put us deeper in debt or lead to increased taxes or both. Neo-liberalism sees the former as being unfair to future generations and the latter as political suicide.
But is not doing anything fair to future generations? I think not, because our existing physical infrastructure will continue to crumble and decay and have Band-Aids thrown at it and nothing new will be added to spark increased productivity.
So while the current neo-liberal approach of talking about it and wailing “woe is us, we can’t afford it” (i.e. doing nothing) saves the lives of the politicians and keeps taxes low, it compromises the quality of life of future generations.
Is that the legacy we want to leave our children and grandchildren? Brian Gordon, Thornhill
Eugene Lang makes no argument against the income redistribution policies of the prosperous 1950s and ’60s except to say that this model had “run its course.”
But isn’t this contradicted by his later recognition that inequality is one of the most serious problems facing us now? How else will inequality be reduced except by income redistribution?
Economic policies that increase aggregate wealth without addressing its fair distribution will just make the rich richer and the poor relatively poorer. Julie Beddoes, Toronto