Archive for the ‘Child & Family Debates’ Category

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Mental health and prison: a tragic cycle that repeats itself

Saturday, September 16th, 2023

… when offenders are released, they often return to the same circumstances — homelessness, unemployment, drug use, lack of mental health care — that led to their offending in the first place.
Post-release treatment must therefore be just one part of a more comprehensive community effort, one that attends to the health, housing and employment needs of offenders.

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The criminalization of drugs creates more crime than it prevents

Sunday, June 25th, 2023

Illegal drug use is, always has been, and always will be a public health issue. Legal drugs are consumed to get through life — or simply escape life’s despair. Users inevitably end up addicted. This is a public health issue and instead of treating it as such, we waste incalculable millions trying to treat it as a criminal issue. So why do we not scrap the whole insane criminalization strategy and decriminalize all drugs? Profits. 

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Should we be taking money off Canadians’ paycheques for long-term care?

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

A public — not private — long-term-care insurance program could help pay for costly and unexpected expenses due to ill health or fragility that can be financially devastating… many will spend their later years living on a basic retirement income that likely won’t cover the thousands of dollars needed for health-related services, such as home care from private-pay personal support workers or nursing home “accommodation” co-payment fees. 

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Why bail reform in Ontario is an expensive mistake

Thursday, April 13th, 2023

It costs approximately $302 per day to keep one person in jail in Ontario… Two recent murders show how bail reform misses the mark… The failure here was not the law, but the police failing to use the law… Instead of locking people up to keep us safe on transit, we could put that money into lowering transit fares. Politicians need to look past bail reform and turn their attention toward a solution that actually makes us safer.

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Crime rates have more to do with social factors than number of police officers

Sunday, April 2nd, 2023

The only way to reduce random crime is to address the root causes of it, usually defined by social indicators: inequality, affordable housing, programs for young children and families. The provincial and federal governments are the only public institutions with the financial capability of addressing these issues, but as we have seen in the recently released budgets of both Queen’s Park and Ottawa, they seem uninterested in doing so.

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Could free birth control be on the horizon in Ontario? 

Saturday, March 18th, 2023

“The most reliable birth-control choices are the most expensive options, costing $380 upfront,”… “We know that, in this climate, when people are living paycheque to paycheque, they don’t have $380.” … In funding contraception, governments can spend money to save money, says Boulous: “We know that, for every dollar you spend, you get $90 in savings in indirect and direct costs.”

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Public safety comes from curbing violence, not just reacting to it

Monday, January 9th, 2023

Smart investment in tackling the root causes of violence reduces the need for police responses after the fact… It is time to get upstream of the emergencies. Not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because it will alleviate the need for annual increases to policing that take away from so many other budget priorities.

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Canadians deserve high-quality care, but non-profit hiring crisis is standing in the way

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022

Community based non-profits are not given the funds to provide salaries on par with municipalities, schools boards and hospitals… significant wage disparity has meant a mass exodus of non-profit workers. As a result, quality of care for our loved ones is compromised as staff turnover interrupts programs and leaves gaps in staffing, disrupting critical relationships and care systems.

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How Baby Boomers will change the way Canadians die

Wednesday, May 4th, 2022

Expanding access not only to doctors and nurses but also to counsellors, social workers and grief experts, as well as special management of medications in the home environment where more people want to die is key, Sumner says… “One thing that members of my generation have taken for granted is that they’re in the driver’s seat as far as their lives are concerned,” he says. “I want to hope that they can drive a lot of this change as well.”

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What COVID-19 has taught us about caring for our elders

Wednesday, January 5th, 2022

A recent survey by the National Institute on Aging found that almost 100 per cent of Canadians aged 65 and older planned to live in their own home for as long as possible. Yet Canada spends 87 per cent of long-term care dollars on institutionalizing people in nursing homes rather than at-home assistance.

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