Canada falls in Human Development Index rank







In the United Nations (UN) 2013 Human Development Index (HDI) Canada had fallen out of the top ten most developed countries list, receiving eleventh place. Since the 1990’s, where Canada held the HDI’s number one position for several years, our position on this index which measures life expectancy, health, education, as well as income to determine general well-being of specific countries (United Nations Development Programme.org), has been steadily falling. 

Despite Canada being named the ‘most educated‘ by an OECD (Economic Cooperation and Development) study done earlier this year, the HDI report still has Canada as stagnant in terms of ‘how many years of education the average child entering school can expect to receive‘, as well as the number of years Canadians expect to be in school remaining at 12.3. (United Nations Development Programme.org)

During the 1990’s when Canada enjoyed the number one position on the HDI, Jean Chrétien was faced with a massive deficit, and brought in policies such as severely cutting government spending, as well as introducing small tax increases to bring down the Canadian federal deficit, in fact creating a surplus. Under preceding Prime Minister Brian Mulrooney, Canada had also signed the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which made trade easier between the United States and Mexico. 

The 2013 HDI report is titled The Rise of the South, and sees countries such as Brazil and China rising to higher spots on the list. These countries have also opened trade with the rest of the world in recent years. In an increasingly globalized world, is it fair to say that countries must open their borders in order to keep their level of development high?


Norway claimed the top spot this year on the HDI list, and has most of its natural resources state-owned, and relatively high taxes. With Prime Minister Harper making agreements with Chinese companies to buy our oil in Alberta, the Norwegians may be on to something.      


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