Thank you.
Good morning to the witnesses. Thank you for being here.
I guess what I hear from Mr. Van Kesteren's line of questioning is if you don't want to be poor in Canada, choose your parents well. I guess that's what I hear him saying.
But let me get to my line of questioning. There was some debate about measures of inequality, and I suppose we could debate how many economists could dance on the head of a pin, but let me quote a couple of outside reputable organizations. The Conference Board of Canada gave Canada a C grade on income inequality and ranked us 12th out of 17 peer countries on income inequality.
The Economist magazine, that well-known left-wing journal, devoted an entire issue to income inequality last October and noted the relative increase in income inequality. Obviously, the U.S. is a more extreme example, but the magazine cited Canada as well. The OECD has found that Canada's level of income inequality is now above the OECD average. In 2011 the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, found that equality appears to be an important ingredient in promoting and sustaining growth. We've heard that from other witnesses. We've all heard, of course, of the 2009 ground-breaking book on inequality by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett that demonstrates that inequality more than GDP or GNP has a significant impact on a range of social indicators, including life expectancy, literacy, teenage pregnancy, and incarceration.
The last point I want to make is that the Canadian tax benefits system used to be as effective as the Nordic countries' system in stabilizing inequality, offsetting more than 70% of the rise of market income inequality; it now offsets less than 40% of the rise of inequality in Canada.
We heard Mr. Alexander, from TD, talk about the important return investment in child care makes. He said that for every dollar you invest in child care, you get between $1.50 and $2 in return. For low-income families, that return is even greater. However, sadly, the OECD ranks Canada last when it comes to child care programs.
I'd like the panellists to comment on this. I won't ask any specific member of the panel, but I'd like to know what your views are on investment in child care services in reducing inequality and having better economic outcomes in Canada, if that would be desirable.