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Nobody, including the business leaders involved,
seems to have been able to see what was going to happen, in time for anybody at
all to make any preparations in terms of alternative work for the people -
which equals tax revenue generators -
who were let go. It raises some basic and difficult questions about “how
deep do you need to go” in terms of researching what is going on the market
place, in order to be able to make reliable business forecasts and job market
forecasts, so as not to be caught in a sudden and arguably massive crisis such as
what actually occurred. In this connection, “job market forecasts” obviously
equates to “tax revenue generation forecasts”, except for the obvious
differences in the sizes of the cash flows involved. The terrorist actions in
New York and Washington on September 11th 2001 have aggravated the situation.
In any case, part of the solution for Ottawa
lies outside the scope of what is under the direct control of the community
i.e. the City of Ottawa and all who live there. Further, the problem as a whole
is not new – in fact, it has been around for decades and grew to its present
size because it was allowed to by the general populace, who did not know and so
could not see, and by successive provincial and federal governments who did
therefore also not see and did not act. So the root cause seems to have been
un-broken inattention to it over several decades, based on the notion that it
would somehow go away because the people affected were thought not to matter or
even exist, and were additionally thought not to have the knowledge or power to
do anything about it. Nobody thought about the tax revenue production if those
people were allowed to work, as opposed to being endlessly hornswoggled by
everybody else. And of course most people thought they were being frightfully
clever when hornswoggling at the expense of someone who was out of work – but
the real “reason” was only because it was seen as socially fashionable, which
conferred on this type of behaviour an ill-gotten mantle of invincibility and
being “correct”. A case of “…the
Emperor has no clothes...” – where, in this instance, the said “Emperor”
appeared to have the said clothes, but had actually stolen them.
Simply put, the economy was never big enough –
even during supposedly “booming” economic times – to create enough jobs.
Alternatively the author could state that even during the recent “booming”
economic times (i.e. up to about December 2000) we needed about another 3 new
full-time jobs for every 10 that existed then. And almost nobody seems to have realised
it. Right now (November 2001), the situation is relatively a bit worse. We
could also say that part of the problem is insufficient entrepreneurs per head
of population. If we now agree that the situation in Ottawa was unacceptable up
to December 2000 then it is even more so now. In almost every other
municipality in the country, the situation was and is worse. We indeed did,
without doubt, have an “economic boom”
in Ottawa, both in an absolute sense and relative to the rest of the country -
but the point is that it was actually a “boom” relative to what people are or
were used to. Quite clearly, this is not the same thing at all as a “boom”
which is strong enough to create enough jobs (which equals, tax revenue
generation opportunities) for everybody who wants a job (which equals,
everybody who wants to contribute to the tax base and participate in society
the way most people do).
So, in
the current difficult times and having regard to the efforts of TOP and others referred to, where do we go from here?
In this
author’s opinion, we need:-
1.
Provincial
and federal government tax policies which reflect the true number of new
full-time jobs needed, currently between about 4.4 and 5.3 million for the
whole of Canada. Revised tax policies will be needed for business taxes as well
as personal income taxes; both affect the numbers of jobs available. Further,
this impacts both on existing companies and the availability of entrepreneurs
to start new ones. We also need more entrepreneurs and more companies who can
create jobs, per head of population. In the author’s opinion, revisions to tax
policies will need to focus on those industries which are export-oriented and
growing, which in practice usually seems to mean the high-tech industries – in
other words, the types of industries which are defined as “Economic Generators”
in the ICF Consulting report. In
Ottawa, these “Economic Generator” industries accounted for about 26% of all
jobs then existing; the same will be approximately true for additional jobs
created.