University and TD Bank sponsored study proves Harper government is bad for Toronto

Edited by Peter Tremblay

The Stephen Harper government has been racking up huge budgetary surpluses which has been invested toward supporting the U.S. President Bush administration's oppressive wars in the Middle East, rather than into critically needed social policy areas. As a result, Canadian cities like Toronto, are having the quality-of-living decline in a downward spiral. According to supposedly "Christian" Prime Minister Stephen Harper, there is hundreds of millions of dollars available commit Canadian taxpayers dollars to providing corporate welfare for U.S. based defence contractors, but no money to redress, for example, homelessness, other social malaise, and declining urban infrastructure.

Canada used to be the number 1. ranked country in quality-of-living as documented by the United Nations Human Development Index. However, it appears that Stephen Harper government is prepared to continue to destroy Canada's quality-of-living, that had been predicated on the affirmation of innovative progressive social policies.

A comprehensive University study now shows that Toronto is no longer a "city of neighbourhoods" but has become a "city of disparities". That is a key finding of powerful new research from the University of Toronto's Centre for Urban and Community Studies. The "City of Disparities" research bulletin, The Three Cities Within Toronto: Income Polarization among Toronto's Neighbourhoods, 1970 - 2000, LINK, and accompanying media realeases set out the dramatic growth in income gaps over the past three decades - as the rich get richer, the poor grow more numerous and the middle-income shrink.

A complied map present a grim prospect on de-evolution towards a grossly inequitable city. This research confirms and builds on earlier research from TD Economics [1], which marks growing poverty in Toronto, and the United Way of Greater Toronto [2] which confirms this critical trend.

Endnotes:

[1] LINK

[2] LINK

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