Two reports -- one released yesterday, the other today -- paint a pretty grim picture of where the country is. The Huffington Post reports that Canada's wealthiest continued to do well last year:
The stock markets came roaring back after a shaky 2011, and so did the wealthy. Canada’s high net worth individuals (those with liquid assets of $1 million or more) saw their wealth grow 6.8 per cent last year, according to a new report from RBC and Capgemini.
That’s a considerably better rate than what the average Canadian saw. Household net worth in Canada grew a comparably measly 1.4 per cent last year.
During the same period, the plight of Canada's aboriginal children got worse:
Half of Canada's First Nations children are living in poverty, triple the national average, according to a new analysis of census statistics that pegs the cost of easing the problem at $580-million a year.
The study by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives being released Wednesday also paints a grim picture of Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children, as well as of children of immigrants and visible minorities.
The analysis of census data from 2006 — the latest year relevant statistics are available — finds one-third of immigrant children and almost one-quarter of visible minority kids live below the low income line.
For other indigenous children — Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children — the rate is about 27 per cent.
The overall rate for children who belong to none of those groups is about 12 per cent.
And we pride ourselves on our economic prowess? The gulf keeps getting bigger. We should not be sleeping well these days.
2 comments:
Funny, isn't it Owen, how the media always qualifies the Centre For Policy Alternatives as either 'left-leaning' or 'left wing', as if to care about the plight of people's well-being is an ideology rather than a human trait?
They seem to imply, Lorne, that only those on the left can have a social conscience.
There was a time when conservatives were concerned about the health -- not just the wealth -- of the community.
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