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Paying For Canada: Perspectives on Public Finance and National Programs (1994)

A Joint Statement by Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens for Public Justice, and Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto

Commentary by Armine Yalnizyan

In any given community, at any given moment, there are thought-leaders. Marvyn Novick was a thought-leader for the progressive community and played that role in Toronto and beyond for decades. He provided context, analysis and strategy in the pursuit of making our community a place where all could thrive.

Paying for Canada was one example of why and how Marvyn sought and provided thought leadership. The report wrestled with four points we wrestle with still:

  • “It is not the fault of social policy that there is poverty and unemployment.”  These result from failures in the market.
  • The fiscal crisis is not the result of over-spending; it is the result of “under-collection” of revenues, beginning in the 1970s.
  • “Reforming the welfare state [is about] altering the course of Canadian development.”
  • “The social security and fiscal reforms we are about to engage in…are about redefining nationhood.”

Marvyn was outraged by the possibility that Canada’s federal government of the day (the newly elected Liberal Party of Canada, led by Jean Chretien) could contemplate balancing the books almost uniquely through spending cuts. Those cuts were far deeper than those contemplated by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government, a government so reviled that Canadian voters had reduced them to two seats in the House of Commons, giving these “liberals” a massive majority. But the Liberals were set on austerity, before the term was coined. The hardest hit would be, as they always are, the most vulnerable: the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the elderly, and children. Marvyn’s righteous fury was the jet fuel that propelled his desire to find a compelling alternative approach to our budgetary problems, one that assured the weakest would not bear the heaviest costs of fiscal “prudence”.

Marvyn argued that national options existed to enhance social security and address the deficit – options that did not require Canada to dismantle its welfare state. These options included “getting people back to work”, and generating tax reforms that address both equity and adequacy concerns.

Recall we were living in an era when every budget-related conversation ended up with Margaret-Thatcher’s narrative trope, TINA: There Is No Alternative. In his search for practical, irresistible alternatives, Marvyn read voraciously in areas of public finance not traditionally in his bailiwick; he deepened his own analysis of social program spending; and he advanced our collective thinking by bringing together advocates and analysts from the Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens for Public Justice and the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto. I had the privilege of working with this remarkable group of committed experts. Marvyn created strength through coalition, and made sure the best of everyone’s contribution expanded the appeal of what he ably and eloquently assembled.

Finally, Marvyn’s strategic sensibilities helped us understand and accept the political process. No matter how unassailably correct the argument, how carefully crafted the analysis, Marvyn warned us what ultimately matters is what happens next: When the politicians look over your shoulder, who do they see standing behind you? Alas, we could neither marshal thousands of people in the streets who wanted to Pay For Canada, nor could we marshal deep-pocketed moneybags who agreed that was the way forward.

And yet, re-reading a document written almost a quarter century ago, I am struck how Paying for Canada still goes straight to the heart of debate about public finances today. It attempted to prevent Canada’s federal budget of 1995, with its single-minded focus on spending cuts, and which provided the template for a series of copycat austerity budgets around the world over the next 20 years. Austerity was invoked under the “progressive” leadership of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. And it is clearly the strategy again under Premier Doug Ford. Sadly, austerity is not yesterday’s news for any of us who were involved with Marvyn’s project of Paying for Canada. But importantly, neither are the solutions proposed therein.

That’s what it means to be a thought-leader, being influential and relevant for decades to come. Seeking out context that clarified our choices: “either we continue to dismantle national programs, both social and cultural, or we commit ourselves to paying for them”; building a coalition that strengthened our analysis; and courage to stay focused on solutions that advance the goal. Actions that strengthen the public will to support one another and avoid eroding that public will. Marvyn was a thought-leader in every sense of the word.

Public finance decision-making shapes nations. You can’t separate social and economic policies. Marvyn’s arguments in Paying for Canada resonate with these timeless truths. Marvyn’s thought-leadership shaped my thinking and still informs my work. In memoriam, and in hopes for a world where all can thrive: thank you Marvyn.

Armine Yalnizyan is a leading voice in Canada’s economic scene. In 1994, she worked with Marvyn and colleagues on the research and advocacy for Paying for Canada.

The full document is available here.

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