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Further, and as discussed again later, current information systems for measuring tax revenue losses due to somebody being prevented from working (or, conversely, for measuring returns to the tax base relative to investment in training, either in the work place or outside the work place) do not seem to be adequate. In fact it seems clear, to a large extent, that they do not exist at all – to the extent that they ignore the potential tax revenues from over 4 million people in Canada. Quite clearly, this is a situation which Canadians would find unacceptable if they were made clearly aware of it.
In addition, the consequences of
continuing to ignore the problem as a whole will get worse. Therefore, the
business case for dealing with it properly, from the standpoint of tax revenue
generation for government (apart from the usual considerations), is not open to
dispute. Therefore, the author suggests that work to deal with it must commence
without delay.
2. CITY
OF OTTAWA ; POVERTY ISSUES ADVISORY COMMITTEE
2.1
The
author volunteered, in 2001, to serve
on the City of Ottawa’s Poverty Issues Advisory Committee, but found that this
Committee’s work was concerned with immediate issues for people in poverty,
rather than the issues dealt with on this site. However this is no way changes
the importance of the Committee’s work or the author’s own work because:-
(a) The evidence concerning the need for the solutions proposed is not open to dispute. There have been many instances of where actions have been taken, as if in response to the author’s having pointed out problem areas, or as if in response to his recommendations. In all cases, positive results have ensued, as shown in the following table:-.
Table illustrating correspondences
(b) The Poverty Issues Advisory Committee’s work entails dealing with certain immediate concerns such as homelessness and social housing; without solutions to these problems, it is not possible for the people affected to do what is needed in order for them to obtain employment and become tax payers. The author’s work concerns solutions based on the problem’s root causes i.e the lack of jobs open relative to the numbers of people needing jobs.
2.2 A complete solution to the problems in Ottawa, or for that matter any other part of the country, will not be possible without policy changes at both federal government and provincial government level, and changes in attitudes and perceptions throughout the population including Ottawa. Obviously, the latter must be made to happen before government policy changes can reasonably be asked for / made to happen.
2.3 Fundamentally, we have to deal with a management problem as opposed to a political one, even though some of the remedial actions needed will be political ones.
A necessary pre-requisite to solving a management problem is to inform everybody involved correctly about what the problem is, what must be done and why. Input from everybody involved, concerning what must be done, must also be included in the solution. The size of the problem – within an individual company, or within a nation – does not alter the argument. Detractors of what has just been said might wish to say that certain things are “..just not done…” etc. - based on tradition, vested interests, hierarchies, so-called legal problems / absence of legal precedent, politics and inertia; the answer is that a big problem exists and we must all do whatever is necessary to deal with it properly.
To begin with, we must point out the true numbers of persons unemployed in real terms, the consequential numbers of new full-time jobs needed and the time scale; this part of the exercise must include the effects of immigration based on current policies, the effects of permanent retirements from the work force on account of disability (or projected financial comfort in retirement, such that the person no longer needs to work or chooses not to work) and the effects of new entrants to the labour force born in Canada. Currently, the number of jobs available is very small compared to the numbers of people looking for work and / or who could be working.