Donna Morton and the Centre for Integral Economics
May 15, 2006
By Nicole Zummach
VICTORIA, BC // Taxes are sexy...or at least they could be if people realized their potential to effect positive change in this country. That's just part of the message Donna Morton is spreading to politicians, social activists, and concerned citizens alike. As the founder and executive director of the
Centre for Integral Economics (CIE), she works with business, government and nonprofit partners to encourage innovative strategies that reconcile economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental integrity. It might sound like a lofty goal, but Morton and her colleagues know it is not only within reach, but necessary to the creation of a more sustainable society. Many others agree, including Ashoka, which granted Morton a fellowship in 2003 to support the important work she and her colleagues are pursuing. CharityVillage spoke with her about the link between taxes and sustainability, and the revolutionary agenda she is proposing.
CharityVillage: The work you do through CIE is often described as tax shifting. Can you elaborate on this concept?
Donna Morton: The idea of tax shifting really got started in Europe, and it was designed at first to untax labour. So it was designed to pull the tax rate down on jobs, literally, as an employment strategy. They needed to make up revenues in order to maintain the services that people expected, so they started looking for targets - things that they could shift the taxes to that would also have other positive dividends. They realized that, in a basis economic sense, if you want more of something, don't tax it; if you want less of something, tax it. They used that principle and decided they wanted less pollution, less wasteful use of energy, less wanton use of raw natural resources. There are now about a dozen countries in the EU and beyond that have begun shifting taxes off of things they want more of - jobs, income, investment - and onto things they want less of - pollution, wasted energy.
CV: What feedback are you hearing from our government about this concept?
DM: We've spoken to government at all levels for years now, and in the early days it was often news to both the bureaucrats and elected officials. That's not the case any more. They all get it; they all understand it. They are well versed and can point to countless examples where tax shifting has been effective. In North America, our barriers to tax shifting aren't about logic and information; they're about political will. There is a system in the way and the public isn't naturally compelled by taxes as a tool to create change, and elected officials get that. Even the ones who are more visionary and want to make big changes are largely afraid of this agenda.
You've got this kind of systems barrier, so we've moved more and more toward citizen engagement and process design around tax shifting. We focus less these days on the 'what' and much more on the 'how'. We think that's where the large barriers are. It's scary for politicians to mess with taxes, unless they are cutting. That's why all we see are tax cuts. Ultimately, the public needs to understand that taxes are this enormous rudder that can steer our economy toward or away from sustainability, and what we tax matters more than how much we tax. We should make decisions about how taxes can be lined up with our values. I think that's the fundamental piece that we bring into the economic debate in Canada.
CV: What kind of projects are you currently involved with?
DM: We're working with a collection of citizens in Toronto around the process that would talk about taxes in an intelligent way, around arts and cultural objectives, around health prevention issues. We're also working with a group of people who are interested in using tax measures as a way to address sprawl in and around the Greater Toronto Area. As well, we're incubating a project right now with two other Ashoka fellows around youth entrepreneurship. It will be a program that invites young people (19-30 year olds) to participate in a two-day intensive workshop that helps them identify who they are, their passions, what motivates them, and what they want to do with that in terms of making a living. The second phase of that would probably be a mentorship program where we would help pair up those young people with concrete experience in relevant fields. And the project that is probably most near and dear to us right now is the book we are writing. It's finally a chance to step back a bit and reflect, and capture and share our lessons learned to date.
CV: This forthcoming book has been referred to as 'the manifesto for a new tax revolution'. It sounds like this revolution needs to happen if things are going to change.
DM: I believe that. Whatever next economic revolution happens in Canada and the US, I really believe it will happen on the grounds of tax shifting. It is really a very revolutionary agenda, and in my opinion, it's the right kind of revolutionary agenda. This is true from the tax shifting examples we've studied in the EU. What's so incredible about it is that it's been neutral or positive for every economy that has ever played with it. It's been significantly positive in some cases in terms of job creation, and the environmental and social dividends are incredible - all from very small tax shifts.
CV: How did being selected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2003 impact your work and your organization?
DM: I think it impacted us in a lot of ways. It was a message from the outside world saying, "We value what you are doing." Eight years ago, when we started working on this agenda, we felt ahead of the curve. And there are exciting things about ploughing new territory, but sometimes there are lonely things. Even today, the philanthropy community is still much more focused on triage. There is still a lot more funding if you are feeding people who are hungry, rather than preventing people from becoming hungry. In particular, around environmental sustainability objectives, the foundation community is still much more focused on metrics and measurables, and results that are deliverable within a year or several years. So Ashoka was sort of a gift to us, both in terms of the revenue and the credibility. It was a credibility marker to other potential donors and investors. But besides the money and the support and the recognition, somehow just the community that Ashoka is has meant a lot in our work.
For more information about the Centre for Integral Economics, visit: www.integraleconomics.org.
To learn more about Ashoka, visit: www.ashoka.org/us-canada/main/canada.cfm.
