"The Truth About Canada"
Listening to: Ozzy, Duran Duran, and a CNC machine of some variety...
Get madder than Mel [Hurtig] and say, 'I'm not going to take it anymore.'
by Scott Harris for Vue Weekly, Dateline: Sunday, May 25, 2008
Excerpted from: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature8.cfm?REF=307
Actually, by his own admission, he's not just upset, he's seriously pissed off about the direction that the country has been heading in since the 1980s. And he wants you to be pissed off too, writing in the book's preface, "I hope you will be angry after reading The Truth About Canada, very angry. Angry at greedy, hypocritical, intentionally misleading corporate executives, and angry at the remarkably inept politicians who have allowed a small and wealthy plutocracy to sell out our country and our destiny for their own selfish motives."
[...]
In page after page of statistics and measures, Hurtig both compares Canada to itself - showing the monumental shifts in economics, social measures and culture which have occurred under Prime Ministers Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper - and to the other developed nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
On health care, Hurtig reveals that Canada now ranks 54th in the world in the number of physicians relative to population - below not only countries one would expect like Norway and Sweden, but also Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uruguay and a host of others.
On child poverty, he points out that despite a 1989 House of Commons pledge to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, the number of Canadian children living in poverty has gone from 15.1 percent at the time of the federal vow to 17.7 percent in 2004.
On the tattered Canadian social safety net, he shows that when it was still called Unemployment Insurance in 1980, 86 percent of unemployed workers received assistance from the program, dropping to just 40 percent today as the re-branded Employment Insurance program.
Hurtig also dispenses with the myth of an equitable Canada, using Statistics Canada data to show that between 1984 and 2005 only the wealthiest 10 percent of Canadians increased their share of wealth. In 2005, the richest 40 percent of Canadians owned 89.4 percent of wealth in the country and the bottom 40 percent shared just 2.4 percent.
If there is one indisputable claim that Mel Hurtig can make, it's that he's a dedicated Canadian.
In the '80s, he published The Canadian Encyclopedia to document Canada's history, personalities and accomplishments and has subsequently penned a half-dozen books, including The Betrayal of Canada and The Vanishing Country, to shed light on what he saw as threats to its future.
As a founding member of the Committee for an Independent Canada, the Council of Canadians and the short-lived National Party, Hurtig has spent more than a generation pushing to maintain economic and political sovereignty in the face of free trade agreements and business leaders and politicians bent on greater integration with our imposing southern neighbour.
Given Hurtig's numerous efforts at advancing the cause of Canadian nationalism and sovereignty, it's understandable that he's a little upset as he looks back and surveys the success, or lack thereof, of his life's work. Such is the somewhat depressing task that Hurtig undertakes in his latest book, The Truth About Canada.
Actually, by his own admission, he's not just upset, he's seriously pissed off about the direction that the country has been heading in since the 1980s. And he wants you to be pissed off too, writing in the book's preface, "I hope you will be angry after reading The Truth About Canada, very angry. Angry at greedy, hypocritical, intentionally misleading corporate executives, and angry at the remarkably inept politicians who have allowed a small and wealthy plutocracy to sell out our country and our destiny for their own selfish motives."
Strong words, to be sure, but Hurtig follows them up by spending almost 400 pages documenting in excruciating detail and frustrated tone just how far Canada has slipped from its self-perceived ideal of being a just and internationally admired nation.
In page after page of statistics and measures, Hurtig both compares Canada to itself - showing the monumental shifts in economics, social measures and culture which have occurred under Prime Ministers Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper - and to the other developed nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
On health care, Hurtig reveals that Canada now ranks 54th in the world in the number of physicians relative to population - below not only countries one would expect like Norway and Sweden, but also Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uruguay and a host of others.
On child poverty, he points out that despite a 1989 House of Commons pledge to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, the number of Canadian children living in poverty has gone from 15.1 percent at the time of the federal vow to 17.7 percent in 2004.
On the tattered Canadian social safety net, he shows that when it was still called Unemployment Insurance in 1980, 86 percent of unemployed workers received assistance from the program, dropping to just 40 percent today as the re-branded Employment Insurance program.
Hurtig also dispenses with the myth of an equitable Canada, using Statistics Canada data to show that between 1984 and 2005 only the wealthiest 10 percent of Canadians increased their share of wealth. In 2005, the richest 40 percent of Canadians owned 89.4 percent of wealth in the country and the bottom 40 percent shared just 2.4 percent.
More than just a compiler of numbers, Hurtig pulls no punches in pointing fingers at who he sees as the guilty parties in all of this. He skewers the failure of successive governments since the '80s and their business allies, including the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, well-funded right wing think-tanks like the CD Howe and Fraser Institutes, along with the corporate media, which he says has turned a blind eye to what has been happening.
Hurtig also spends considerable space focusing on what he sees as the driving force behind Canada's decline: the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement (which he calls "the most colossal con job in Canadian history") as well as NAFTA and the rest of the alphabet soup of free trade agreements.
Where The Truth About Canada comes up short is in its relative dearth of prescriptions for what Canadians can do with their newfound anger, only devoting a chapter to the urgent need for electoral reform, which he says has been his "most important priority" for the past 30 years, and offering a brief call for greater political activism by Canadians and grassroots democratic involvement to stop the latest threat to sovereignty, the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
But in fairness, at 75 Hurtig shouldn't be expected to be at the front of any barricades, and if everyone who reads his book gets as angry as Hurtig did writing it, things will be pretty crowded up there on the frontlines anyway.
Scott Harris writes for Vue Weekly, Edmonton. He can be reached via his eddress below. scott@vueweekly.com
Get madder than Mel [Hurtig] and say, 'I'm not going to take it anymore.'
by Scott Harris for Vue Weekly, Dateline: Sunday, May 25, 2008
Excerpted from: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature8.cfm?REF=307
Actually, by his own admission, he's not just upset, he's seriously pissed off about the direction that the country has been heading in since the 1980s. And he wants you to be pissed off too, writing in the book's preface, "I hope you will be angry after reading The Truth About Canada, very angry. Angry at greedy, hypocritical, intentionally misleading corporate executives, and angry at the remarkably inept politicians who have allowed a small and wealthy plutocracy to sell out our country and our destiny for their own selfish motives."
[...]
In page after page of statistics and measures, Hurtig both compares Canada to itself - showing the monumental shifts in economics, social measures and culture which have occurred under Prime Ministers Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper - and to the other developed nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
On health care, Hurtig reveals that Canada now ranks 54th in the world in the number of physicians relative to population - below not only countries one would expect like Norway and Sweden, but also Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uruguay and a host of others.
On child poverty, he points out that despite a 1989 House of Commons pledge to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, the number of Canadian children living in poverty has gone from 15.1 percent at the time of the federal vow to 17.7 percent in 2004.
On the tattered Canadian social safety net, he shows that when it was still called Unemployment Insurance in 1980, 86 percent of unemployed workers received assistance from the program, dropping to just 40 percent today as the re-branded Employment Insurance program.
Hurtig also dispenses with the myth of an equitable Canada, using Statistics Canada data to show that between 1984 and 2005 only the wealthiest 10 percent of Canadians increased their share of wealth. In 2005, the richest 40 percent of Canadians owned 89.4 percent of wealth in the country and the bottom 40 percent shared just 2.4 percent.
If there is one indisputable claim that Mel Hurtig can make, it's that he's a dedicated Canadian.
In the '80s, he published The Canadian Encyclopedia to document Canada's history, personalities and accomplishments and has subsequently penned a half-dozen books, including The Betrayal of Canada and The Vanishing Country, to shed light on what he saw as threats to its future.
As a founding member of the Committee for an Independent Canada, the Council of Canadians and the short-lived National Party, Hurtig has spent more than a generation pushing to maintain economic and political sovereignty in the face of free trade agreements and business leaders and politicians bent on greater integration with our imposing southern neighbour.
Given Hurtig's numerous efforts at advancing the cause of Canadian nationalism and sovereignty, it's understandable that he's a little upset as he looks back and surveys the success, or lack thereof, of his life's work. Such is the somewhat depressing task that Hurtig undertakes in his latest book, The Truth About Canada.
Actually, by his own admission, he's not just upset, he's seriously pissed off about the direction that the country has been heading in since the 1980s. And he wants you to be pissed off too, writing in the book's preface, "I hope you will be angry after reading The Truth About Canada, very angry. Angry at greedy, hypocritical, intentionally misleading corporate executives, and angry at the remarkably inept politicians who have allowed a small and wealthy plutocracy to sell out our country and our destiny for their own selfish motives."
Strong words, to be sure, but Hurtig follows them up by spending almost 400 pages documenting in excruciating detail and frustrated tone just how far Canada has slipped from its self-perceived ideal of being a just and internationally admired nation.
In page after page of statistics and measures, Hurtig both compares Canada to itself - showing the monumental shifts in economics, social measures and culture which have occurred under Prime Ministers Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper - and to the other developed nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
On health care, Hurtig reveals that Canada now ranks 54th in the world in the number of physicians relative to population - below not only countries one would expect like Norway and Sweden, but also Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uruguay and a host of others.
On child poverty, he points out that despite a 1989 House of Commons pledge to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, the number of Canadian children living in poverty has gone from 15.1 percent at the time of the federal vow to 17.7 percent in 2004.
On the tattered Canadian social safety net, he shows that when it was still called Unemployment Insurance in 1980, 86 percent of unemployed workers received assistance from the program, dropping to just 40 percent today as the re-branded Employment Insurance program.
Hurtig also dispenses with the myth of an equitable Canada, using Statistics Canada data to show that between 1984 and 2005 only the wealthiest 10 percent of Canadians increased their share of wealth. In 2005, the richest 40 percent of Canadians owned 89.4 percent of wealth in the country and the bottom 40 percent shared just 2.4 percent.
More than just a compiler of numbers, Hurtig pulls no punches in pointing fingers at who he sees as the guilty parties in all of this. He skewers the failure of successive governments since the '80s and their business allies, including the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, well-funded right wing think-tanks like the CD Howe and Fraser Institutes, along with the corporate media, which he says has turned a blind eye to what has been happening.
Hurtig also spends considerable space focusing on what he sees as the driving force behind Canada's decline: the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement (which he calls "the most colossal con job in Canadian history") as well as NAFTA and the rest of the alphabet soup of free trade agreements.
Where The Truth About Canada comes up short is in its relative dearth of prescriptions for what Canadians can do with their newfound anger, only devoting a chapter to the urgent need for electoral reform, which he says has been his "most important priority" for the past 30 years, and offering a brief call for greater political activism by Canadians and grassroots democratic involvement to stop the latest threat to sovereignty, the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
But in fairness, at 75 Hurtig shouldn't be expected to be at the front of any barricades, and if everyone who reads his book gets as angry as Hurtig did writing it, things will be pretty crowded up there on the frontlines anyway.
Scott Harris writes for Vue Weekly, Edmonton. He can be reached via his eddress below. scott@vueweekly.com