Well that’s it, back to the salt mines. Another holiday season is in the books and now it’s back to the old routine in the New Year.
It’s usually around this time of year that people get the . . .
notion that they should be making changes in their lives. The number of people hitting they gym or grabbing nicotine patches at the pharmacy skyrockets, only to peter out and drop off completely by the time February has rolled around.
This first editorial of 2020 is going to be a little more personal than most, as I, Caleb Nickerson, share my New Year’s resolution with all The Equity’s readers: I’m going to finish this year in the middle class.
Everyone’s saying that it’s the place to be.
It seemed like throughout the election campaign, every major party was pitching their platforms to this mythical amalgam of citizens, the people who aren’t rich, but definitely aren’t poor. The current government has breathlessly touted their support of “the middle class and those working hard to join it” so often that it’s become a grating cliché.
In their new cabinet unveiling at the end of November, the Liberals took their sloganeering to unprecedented heights, with the creation of a new minister responsible for “Middle Class Prosperity™”, Mona Fortier.
As many in the peanut gallery of social media pointed out, it seemed odd that there was no corresponding “Minister of Prosperity for those working hard to join the middle class”, but perhaps that title was simply too lengthy to put on letterhead.
In the days following her appointment, Fortier was asked to define the “middle class” that she’s mandated to support. Her response, during an interview with CBC Radio, was unsurprisingly vague:
“Well, I define the middle class where people feel that they can afford their way of life,” she said. “They have quality of life. And they can … send their kids to play hockey or even have different activities.”
Finance Minister Bill Morneau has stated that the middle class is more like a set of shared characteristics and values than a group defined by income. The Prime Minister himself was asked to nail down this definition during an interview on Dec. 17, and responded that “Canadians know who’s in the middle class”.
Unfortunately, I and a lot of my fellow citizens are still a little confused on that front. It’s true that the exact dollar value varies quite a bit depending on where you live (a $45,000/year salary goes a lot further in Otter Lake than it does in the Glebe, let alone downtown Vancouver). But the fact that there’s no real definition is troublesome.
That’s the magic of the middle class: everyone wants to believe they’re a part of it. There’s social baggage attached to being classified “rich” or “poor” so most would rather think of themselves as smack dab in the middle. As a political strategy, it’s an effective way of appealing to the broadest possible segment of voters, which is why all the mainstream parties use the term so often.
The fact of the matter is, we don’t need a minister responsible solely for pandering to specific demographics of voters. If all the other ministers are doing their jobs, the middle class should prosper just fine without Fortier’s intervention. It should be noted that the pay increase that she received when she was bumped up to cabinet ($85,500 on top of a base MP salary of $178,900), is roughly the same as the country’s median family income.
This branding exercise is at once, hilariously transparent and depressingly cynical, a firm emphasis on style over substance. While I hope that Fortier can help me keep my resolution, I can’t help but think that there are issues and groups far more deserving of a stand-alone cabinet post.
Caleb Nickerson
