Ten-Point Program for Economic Recovery

Year Published:  1983
Resource Type:  Organization
Cx Number:  CX2778

Abstract: 
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is recently published a TEN-POINT PROGRAM FOR ECONOMOIC RECOVERY. It is intended as an alternative to current government policies of high interest rates, tight money, handouts to business, and deliberately induced unemployment.
The main points of the PROGRAM are: stimulate the economy through direct governemnt spending, stop cuts in public spending lower interest rates, implement foreign exchange controls, nationalize the banks, cut defence spedning, introduce price controls, expand public ownership, extend public services, and reform government finances to raise the necessary money for these programs.
CUPE recomends that the government direct its spending to create permanent jobs, rather than temporary make-work projects. Public housing, public transit, health care, day care, education, and cultural activities services for the elderly are all the areas where more direct government investment is required to meet social needs.
The current government program of cuts in public spending is in error both because it increases unemployment in the health, education and social servvice fields, and because it generates further hardships for various disadvantaged groups.
Lower interest rates are recommended as a further economic stimulus. To stop inflation, price controls are favoured over wage controls, since "price controls place the burden on those most able to bear it: the largest corporations."
To provide the necesssary finances for these expenditures, CUPE proposes that the taxation system be reformed to make it more equitable. This would mean re-assessing the special measures which favour corporations and the wealthy - tax deferments, acclerated write-offs, low capital gains, and the like ( "While corporations face a miniminal tax rate of 46 per cent of their profits.")
Additional monies would be freed up by cutting defence spedning from the $7 biiiion it will reach this year. (CUPE notes that U.S. studies have demonstrated that while $1 billion (U.S.) spent on defence creates only 76,000 direct and infirect hobs, the same amount could create 139,000 jobs in education.)
Expansion of public ownership and nationalization of our banks are seen as necessary to give Canadians the necessary power to re-direct the economy.

This organization no longer exists.
This abstract was published in the Connexions Digest in 1983.