Conventional wisdom indicates there has been growing economic inequality in Canada over the past two decades or so.
However, a recent Daily Courier opinion piece implied growing Canadian economic inequality is a myth.
The article, unsurprisingly, was co-authored by researchers from the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think-tank.
This institute pushes economic doctrines that have overwhelmingly failed in practice, and their view on Canadian economic inequality certainly deserves careful, critical examination.
The authors used an array of statistical research to justify their conclusions and, at first glance, the findings appeared to be well researched and believable.
Unfortunately, not being a guru on statistical interpretation, my wish was for some bright statistician to counter the institute's research and conclusions.
Michael Wolfson, the Canadian research chair in population health modelling/populomics at the University of Ottawa, a week later in a Courier guest opinion article, did exactly that.
He co-authored an analysis on this topic, using exactly the same data as the Fraser Institute and came to quite different conclusions.
He stated that the Fraser Institute ignored current research standards for unbiased analysis of income mobility and that the Fraser Institute attempted to perpetrate the Horatio Alger "rags to riches" myth.
The implication is that impressive statistical indicators can be the result of deliberate manipulation of data in order to achieve predetermined ideologically based conclusions.
As the majority of us, I presume, prefer to make our own conclusions based on unbiased, independent and rational research, the conclusions reached by the Fraser Institute on this issue can be dismissed as deliberately misleading and not to be trusted.
W.D. Waddell,
Kelowna