TIME TO PUT ASIDE OUR COMPLAINTS AND GIVE THANKS
To mis-quote Shakespeare, this was the summer of our discontent. Canadians were generally grumpy. From grocery prices to housing affordability, from high taxes to poor medical care, we were serenaded by a chorus of despair. The dismal Blue Jays season didn’t help but seemed strangely in tune with the malaise that gripped us. For many of us, the past year has been dominated by the anger, sorrow and stress that has risen from the ongoing horrors in the Middle East. The rise in Canada of ancient prejudices and hatreds, which we naively thought had been long banished, added a frisson of fear and anxiety. Who ever thought that we would need mobile police command posts providing security for synagogues?
Governments cannot seem to get anything done (I am pointing at you, Eglinton Cross-Town!) and when we do get something done it makes lots of people angry. And yet. As Thanksgiving Day approaches, it is important to take a wider view and appreciate the things that are going right, and for which we should, truly, be thankful. Here are a few of them.
Canadians can look forward to a long life. Life expectancy has continued to rise for most Canadians, and for non-smokers it is well into the eighties. The epidemic of drug overdose has caused a statistical drop, and our failure to address this issue is a stain on our society. For most of us, however, and for our children, a healthy life into our 80s and 90s is now a reasonable expectation. When my father was born in 1920, life expectancy was 54 years. When my son was born in 1987, it was 77 years. What could be more precious than an extra two decades of life?
Canadians are, overall, richer than ever, and richer than most of the world. Canada ranks tenth in the world in disposable income per capita, a measure of how much money we can spend on things we want. Only two large countries, Germany, and the United States, are better off by this measure. The recent significant increase in our population caused by a surge in immigration has distorted some measures of wealth, including per-capita GDP; but for most Canadians, economic times have never been better.
Canada is a safe place to live. Fear of crime, and experience of crime erodes the quality of life. In Canada we have a murder rate that is one-third of that in the U.S. and less than one-tenth of that in Mexico. Violent crime in our country is low and getting lower, making Canada about as safe as Northern Europe, and much safer than any other country in the Americas. (The low crime rate is not uniform across Canada. First Nations continue to experience an unacceptably high rate of violent crime, an issue that is in urgent need of an effective response).
Canadians are well educated. Depending on the survey, Canadians are the third or fourth best educated population in the world. Literacy is universal and about 86% of Canadians will graduate from high school, among the highest rates in the world. Post-secondary education is reasonably affordable and widely available; as a result, Canada has among the highest level of tertiary education per capita of any large country in the world. In a world increasingly driven by technology, and in which “strong back and weak mind” jobs are fast disappearing, our population is well equipped to deal with the future.
Anyone born in Canada has already won the most important lottery in the world. Out of eight billion people, about one-half of one percent have been as fortunate. We do ourselves and our country a disservice when we fail to recognize this. We are living in one of the best countries on the planet. Could it be better? Of course. Are many working to make it better? I certainly hope so. Will our children live better lives than us? It is impossible to know, but we are giving them, at the least, a very good chance to make that happen.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
David Baskin
Chairman
Podcast
Frosters meet Slurpies: Breaking down Couche-Tard’s bid for 7-Eleven – September 3, 2024
Finding Quality in Canadian Banks – September 12, 2024
Building to the top: Bullish on Brookfield – September 18, 2024
Ferrari’s Pole Position – September 25, 2024
Media Appearances
Barry Schwartz on BNN Bloomberg’s The Street: Assessing recent market volatility – September 9, 2024
Ernest Wong on BNN Bloomberg’s Trading Day: Hot Picks in recession proof stocks – September 26, 2024
Interesting Reads
Is Tennis the Sport of the Future? – The Verge
Why 2024’s 2% inflation isn’t 2019’s 2% – RBC Thought Leadership
