Well, our internationally renowned health economists have their answers for us, and they are telling us we have no problem(1). But we have a problem, we have a problem in health care, and we have a problem along all the horizon of our economic system. As we have a Prime Minister serving his criminal friends, so we have his subordinate government serving their friends. That is, our government is a creating wealth for the vicious circle of friends of friends of friends.

The latest news is that while Jean Chrétien has been cleared from an RCMP investigation, we have a police investigation probing fourteen cases involving the handling of millions of dollars in public cash disbursed through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). The news is that ACOA has disbursed $683.2 million for some 4,647 repayable contributions between 1987 and October 2000. Of this amount, $52.3 million is currently in default with an additional $74.7 million having been written off for a total of $127 million or 18.4% in defaults and write-offs since inception of the agency(2).

What to do next? It is very embarrassing to realize that while our governments hail their successes through the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the growth of our international trade, we are experiencing not only a decadence in our social values, but a growing inequality among people. We have a problem in health care, we have problem with crime, we have a problem with poverty, we have a problem in education, and what do our leaders do? They look at the GDP, and they play with numbers to let us know that we have been doing so well in the last decade. We have been doing so great that not only we were able to balance the budgets, but now we are happy to have budgeted surpluses for the next few years(3).

What is a government for? To make a surplus? Since when? Our economic and social priorities have taken a back seat to the interest of the Few and Privileged. The reality is that we didn't do well in the last decade! While I am skeptical about comparing apples with oranges, nevertheless I find compelling that between 1989 and 1996 Canada was the only country out of thirteen OECD countries to experience a negative growth of per capita real GDP(4)!

I am happy that changes in our way of thinking are taking place, and I want to single out the innovative "Dalhousie School," a group of economists associated with the Department of Economics at Dalhousie University, Halifax, and their collaborators(5). This school has discounted the past monetary policies of the Bank of Canada(6), has discarded the notion that the GDP is evidence of our well being, and has challenged the application of "conservative economics" of our governments.

Brian MacLean publishes the electronic newsletter "CANADA'S ECONOMY IN THE NEWSPAPERS," Lars Osberg has been proposing since 1985 a new social index(7) to measure our well being as opposed to per capita GDP, and they all subscribe to the notion that it is possible to use macroeconomic policy to stimulate aggregate demand in the Canadian economy, so that total output will grow faster and the labour market will generate more jobs, less unemployment, less economic insecurity and less inequality(8). Business must not be as usual!

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://ensign.ftlcomm.com 1. - Dr. Michael Rachlis & Co. have the paper solution to save Medicare: Revitalizing Medicare: Shared Problems, Public Solutions, by Mario deSantis, January 25, 2001

2. Police probing federal loans in Atlantic Canada. 14 cases investigated: Briefing for minister reveals millions of dollars involved, Rick Mofina, Southam News, February 26, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010226/485228.html

3. Surplus swells by $4.3B, by Alan Toulin and Jacqueline Thorpe, February 21, 2001, Financial Post http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20010221/480326.html

4. Canada's Disappointing Economic Performance, The Centre for the Study of Living Standards http://www.csls.ca/pdf/disecper.pdf

5. The Dalhousie School: An emerging force in Canadian political economy, by Brian K. MacLean, http://www.geocities.com/brian79/forum.html

6. Canadian Macroeconomic Policy, by Mike Bradfield http://www.geocities.com/brian79/mbmacro.pdf

7. An Index of Economic Well-being for Canada - with Andrew Sharpe, Lars Osberg, October 1998 http://is.dal.ca/~osberg/cgi-bin/titleserv.cgi?#117

8. Economic Policy Variables and Population Health, by Lars Osberg http://www.geocities.com/brian79/plainhel.html