For the fifth consecutive year, the United Nations has given Canada the highest ranking in its human development index, which measures health, standard of living and life expectancy in 174 countries.
It will give prime minister Jean ChrŽtien another year of bragging rights that “we’re the best country in the world,” even though the 1998 report from the UN Development Program measures 1995 data.
But under a new human poverty index, Canada does not do so well. It tied for eighth spot when illiteracy, long-term unemployment and poverty were measured and compared.
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“Out of 174 countries, Canada ranked number one again as far as human development goes,” UNDP assistant administrator Normand Lauzon told a Sept. 9 news conference in Ottawa. “On the bad news side, it shows about two people out of five do not have a level of functional literacy which is needed for a good job in the market and almost one person out of 10 lives below the poverty line.”
Lauzon said Canada should use its high ranking and wealth to help other countries raise their living standards.
And it could start by increasing its aid spending, he said. Since budget cuts, Canada spends $64 per capita in official development aid, said the UN official and former Canadian bureaucrat. Some Nordic countries spend three times that much.
If the developed world does not help poorer nations develop, the cost will be much higher later and the world will become a less fair and a more dangerous place. More money will have to be spent on jails rather than schools.
In political Ottawa, opinion was divided on the significance of the UN report, first published six years ago.
Government officials quickly argued it is another recognition by the world that Canada is a blessed, well-governed nation. Access to education and health care is universal, the gap between the genders is less than in most countries and life expectancy is one of the highest in the world.
Critics were more inclined to look at Canada’s lower standing in the first-time “poverty index.”
Maureen O’Neil, president of the International Development Research Council, called it “a wake-up call” for policy makers to recognize there are great disparities in living standards among Canadians.
And despite universal, mandatory education, the system is failing to teach millions of students how to read properly.
