Oh.... Canada

I've got a lot of stuff to cover over the course of this blog, and here are just some of the things I think are worth talking about (I'll be doing more in depth posts about most of these later):

- Canada is ranked 16th in the OECD (If you don't know- now you know) when it comes to business research and development, with serious under investment for machinery/equipment, training and innovation.

- Venture capital is at a 14-year low.  Venture capital = money provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies.

- The annual average productivity growth (from 2006 to 2009) in Canada was -0.1% which was lower than Germany, Japan, US, UK and Australia.

- At 14%, youth unemployment is nearly double that of the national average and the worst in a generation.

- Some of the highest rates per country for cellular telephone billing and usage (Canada pays an average of $67.50 for a complete plan while India and Hong Kong pay $12.90 and $13.50 respectively).

- The gap between levels of education attained by rural and urban youth is significant; the gap between that of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians is even bigger.

- Canada has nowhere near appropriate or affordable childcare on a federal level; all childcare services are offered publicly.

- Studies show more than 40% of adults lack the literacy skills they need to succeed in the modern economy.

- There is currently $15-billion owed on Canada Student Loans- only federal, excluding anything owing on provincial loan portions.  This is rising at nearly $1-million a day.  Essentially, we are leaving our children with a huge price tag that extends way beyond just the loans they will incur from attending post-secondary school.

- Corporate tax rates are at a historic low of 18% and projected to go down to 15% by 2012.  This is despite the fact that dollars spent in tax cuts to big companies provide less of a return than dollars spent on infrastructure or social programs.  It is projected that a cut in corporate tax rates of 1.5% = about $2.8-billion in foregone revenue in a year.

-  "First-past-the-post" system does not reflect the true majority of Canadians.  This results in very disproportionate sharing of seats most often; larger parties end up, most times, with an unfair representation compared to the smaller parties who will trend with a small share of seats systemically.  It also encourages tactical voting, where a person will vote for someone based on their likeliness of victory instead of 'wasting' a vote on someone who won't win the election.  This promotes the saying- "All votes for anyone other than the 2nd place candidates are votes for the winner", and while this does have a logical tone to it this does not represent a true democracy.  This is the system which breeds substantial power in media coverage, where often times you can win an election by focusing negative attention on your opposing candidate(s) which draws the ire of the press.  This is the same system that promotes votes against instead of votes for; gives birth to the negative and smear campaigning instead of focusing on one's own platform.

- Over 40% of Canada's family caregivers use personal savings to make ends meet.  1/4 of family caregivers miss one or more months of work to provide care.  65% of family caregivers have household incomes under $45,000.  3/4 of family caregivers are women, who are more likely to have lower wages, less savings and additional responsibilities for child care.

- RRSPs haven't grown in a decade; only 1 out of every 4 people make contributions, most often because they just cannot afford to do so not because of a lack of desire.

These are just some of the issues facing us as Canadians.
Wake up- pay attention.  We need to change this place.