Addressing unemployment

The unemployment rate in Canada has now jumped to 6.9%, meaning that more than 1.5 million Canadians are jobless, with the attendant costs of increased stress and sickness, unsustainable personal debts, more household breakdowns, additional crime and alcoholism, the degradation of skills in our workforce and significant lost economic output.

During the Second World War, the Canadian government used deficit spending to put people to work in factories, on farms and in the armed forces. The unemployment rate was driven down to 1%.

Today, we can also implement a true full employment program involving accelerated infrastructure to hire off the top, and a community “job guarantee” to hire off the bottom.

The latter, delivered through lower levels of government and non-profits, could offer people jobs and training in areas such as helping youth and the aged, public arts and environmental stewardship.

The Bank of Canada has signalled the need for more fiscal stimulus. If that is not done, injuries of mass unemployment will continue and that will be the consequence of a bad political choice.

Larry Kazdan, Vancouver