Then, in 1968, education in this province took a huge step back with the acceptance of the Hall-Dennis Report. Its key conclusion was that education was about things like “self-actualization” and “fulfillment” rather than meeting the needs of the marketplace.18 I personally felt the impact two short years later.
I was in Grade 8. Every Friday afternoon our teacher had us move our desks, which were in traditional rows, and create a rectangle around the perimeter of the classroom — like a large conference table. Then we would — and I kid you not — have to say something “nice” about someone else in the room.
There were a couple of different ways we went about this. Sometimes you could pick whom you wanted to compliment (“Johnny, you have a very nice personality”). Sometimes, we went around the room clockwise (“Susie, I think you’re very nice”) or counterclockwise (“Jimmy, you’re very good at sports”). And sometimes, he would direct us to heap praise on someone specific (“Mary, everyone thinks you’re very smart”).
The exercise was about building “self-esteem,” and to this day I think my teacher was well-meaning. But kids aren’t stupid. Everyone saw how ridiculous it was, and it led to one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
There were three short boys in the class. I was one of them. But I was accepted because I was a good athlete and that earned me sufficient cred. The other two short boys were Roger and David. They hated each other with a passion. Roger was a very smart kid, while David was … the polite word back then was “slow.” One day, after we arranged our desks, it happened that the two ended up beside each other, and David was called upon to say something nice about Roger.
There were four stock phrases. I’ve already given them to you. David had to say something nice about Roger. But he couldn’t come up with anything. He started, “Roger is …” He stopped himself. He ran his hands through his hair, then clenched his fists, as if he was trying to force an idea out of his cranium. You could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears as he tried to come up with something — anything — good to say.
Meanwhile, the other kids (we were all between twelve and fourteen) were laughing until tears streamed down our faces. Finally, the teacher said: “David, say something nice about Bobby instead.”
David immediately responded, “Bobby has a very nice personality.”
I left public school aware that:
I had a very nice personality;
I was very nice;
I was very good at sports;
everyone thought I was very smart.
That’s what I knew. What I didn’t know was the difference between a noun and a verb, or an adverb and an adjective.
The assault on educational excellence had begun.
If real economic growth was strong in the 1950s, it was explosive in the 1960s. The following are U.S. numbers, but they are indicative of the situation in Canada as well. In 1960, there was one passenger car for every three Americans. By 1970, it was one for two.19 Houses were getting bigger and better. The “official” numbers indicate that real per capita income jumped by just over 3 percent compounded annually over those ten years,20 and poverty had been virtually eradicated from both the United States and Canada — Lyndon Johnson noted as much in his 1964 speech at the University of Michigan.
I am very lucky. I don’t know what it is to be hungry. But I’ll never forget a story my grandfather told me, a story from when he went back to Czechoslovakia for the last time to bring his family to their new home in Canada. He had spent the day working in the fields with his brothers and sisters. It was harvest time and everyone had to pitch in. He returned to the shack they called home, and there was a glass of milk on the table. Except it wasn’t really a glass; it was more like three ounces. He was exhausted and hungry and he went to drink it. My grandmother, seeing what he was doing, said, “No. If you have that, there’s nothing for the children tomorrow.” So he put it down and went to bed.
Three lousy ounces of milk. That’s poverty.
There were very few situations that extreme in Canada, even back in the 1930s. There was nothing like that in 1968. The war on poverty had been won, but some people were arming themselves for a new battle.
Welcome to the low income cut-off (LICO) metric.
It was determined that in 1959 the average Canadian family spent 50 percent of its income on basic food, clothing, and shelter. The 1968 low income cut-off said that if a family spent 70 percent of its income on basic food, clothing, and shelter, that it was “low-income.” What happened is that the LICO, for all intents and purposes, became Canada’s “poverty” line. And this framework guarantees that we will always have people living in “poverty” — no matter how wealthy all of us are.21
A bit of basic math.
It is 1968. The average Canadian family brings in $8,000 per year. It spends $4,000 on necessities, which means that $4,000 is left for luxuries. A low-income family brings in $5,333 (67 percent of the average) and must spend $4,000 (75 percent of its income) on necessities. This means that it is below the low income cut-off, even though its needs are covered and there is $1,333 (25 percent) left over for luxuries.
The decades pass. If real economic growth averaged 3 percent (and it did during the 1950s and 1960s), then in thirty years the average Canadian family brings in $20,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. We’ll assume that it spends $10,000 on necessities and $10,000 on luxuries. The low-income family continues to earn 70 percent of what the average family earned, which means that it earned $14,000. It’s required to spend $10,000 on necessities (71 percent) and $4,000 on luxuries. So even though the low-income family is spending on luxuries what the average family did a generation ago, it is still considered low-income, with the logic being that it is deserving of social assistance.
The LICO framework is a fraud.
QUESTION 21
Before reading these preceding paragraphs, I understood how “poverty” is defined in Canada.
☐ Yes.
☐ No.
And for the sake of novelty if no other reason, can we be honest and agree that very few “activists” ever mention LICO. They use the much more emotionally charged word, “poverty.”
QUESTION 22
Which term are “activists” more likely to use?
☐ LICO.
☐ Poverty.
QUESTION 23
Do you agree that a poverty “activist” will do anything in his/her power to eradicate poverty, short of putting in an honest day’s work?
☐ Yes.
☐ No.
The LICO was designed to redistribute income and perpetuate government bureaucracies that generate nothing of value. And there would be many, many more of those departments created in the decade that was to follow.
The 1960s in sixty words: Immigration continues, but not at the same rate as experienced in the previous decade. Fewer people are needed to work in agriculture, and in the wake of the Auto Pact, manufacturing becomes much more efficient. State-run medicine will benefit the country for years to come. But there are storm clouds gathering as Canadians begin to expect more and more from government.
A Primer on Fiscal and Monetary Policy
John Maynard Keynes is the most important economist of the twentieth