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Are we living the Canadian dream?

March 10, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Tom Claridge

IT WAS PURELY COINCIDENTAL that in the same week CNN carried an interview with an author who suggested Canadians are doing a lot better than their neighbours to the south, the U.S. Republicans came up with fresh evidence, in the form of their proposed replacement to the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act.

On Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square program (GPS) last Sunday, former Canadian diplomat Scott Gilmore provided some data to back up his contention that it’s easier to get ahead in Canada than in the U.S. these days.

Heading the list of benefits enjoyed by all Canadians was state-supported, universal medicare, something we’ve enjoyed now for nearly half a century.

There’s precious little doubt that the universal health-care coverage has helped give Canadians longer average life expectancy (currently over 81 years, compared with 78 in the U.S.) despite our having to endure much harsher winters.

And while the situation in the U.S. improved somewhat under ‘Obamacare’, there’s little doubt that the Republicans’ proposed replacement will make matters much worse for those most in need of good health care.

Interestingly, the position taken by U.S. conservatives is almost identical to that once taken by Ontario Premier John Robarts when his government and Alberta’s were holdouts against adoption of a universal health care plan.

The argument then was that no one should be forced to have health insurance, and the Ontario government followed through with its Ontario Medical Services Insurance Plan (OMSIP), which made government-subsidized health insurance universally available, allowing both individuals and employee groups to choose between OMSIP and a private plan, or to do without the insurance.

It didn’t take long for the Tories of the day to discover that OMSIP was far costlier than they had expected, simply because the private insurers wound up with all the best risks and left the government plan having to pick up all the sick and elderly.

And that’s precisely what will happen in the U.S. if the Republican-controlled Congress pushes through the plan announced this week. By removing Obamacare’s requirement that everyone either have health insurance or face a financial penalty (a requirement that effectively forced the young and healthy to subsidize the ill and elderly), the proposed Republican replacement is certain to make health insurance premiums rise even more quickly than they did under Obamacare, which should have been modeled on the single-payer, universal plans adopted not just in Canada but in the rest of the industrialized world. The GOP scheme will also see millions of Americans unable to pay for the health insurance they need.

Another area where the two countries seem to be moving in opposite directions is in that of criminal law. One point Mr. Gilmore made was that per-capita incarceration rates in the U.S. are currently six times those in Canada (and even further out of line with those in Europe). Although we seemed to be moving toward the U.S. model under the Stephen Harper regime, there seems to be some hope that the current Parliament will start removing some of the minimum sentences now found in the Criminal Code, particularly as they affect our indigenous population.

And while it’s no doubt true that few Canadians like what they are witnessing in the U.S. these days, there is clearly no room for complacency. Although it may be true that most Canadians are doing well, it’s also true that seven per cent are unemployed and seeking work, and that the percentage is far higher among our indigenous population, in large part because of the failure of our schooling systems in Native communities.

Let’s hope that in the years ahead more of us will live what once was “the American dream” while cherishing a society in which equality isn’t a dirty word.

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