The Cooper Files

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and the
co-author of Silver Harvest: The Fundy Weirmen’s Story.

Dr. Sherry Cooper, who served as a staff economist at the U.S. Federal
Reserve Board before moving north to become chief economist and senior
vice-president at Nesbitt Burns, has a real handle on the business
world. The bulk of this book is devoted to an analysis of the factors
leading to what Cooper regards as Canada’s current economic rut.
According to Cooper, overtaxation of both corporations and private
citizens is contributing to the brain drain and (because of the strong
U.S. dollar) making Canadian companies vulnerable to takeovers by their
more powerful American counterparts.

The Cooper Files is essentially a polemic against Canada’s economic
policies. What little investment advice there is in the book appears to
be directed at financially comfortable superachievers—much like Cooper
herself. While her text is lively, her insistent call for tax cuts
ignores this country’s longstanding tradition of keeping taxes high
(relative to those in the United States) in order to preserve the social
safety net. Cooper’s “me first” philosophy is not the Canadian
way.