Archive for the ‘Equality Debates’ Category
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Doctors say tax us! Ontario is worth it
Apr 02 2012
Almost all the economic gains of the past three decades have gone to Canada’s top 1 per cent but our taxes haven’t gone up accordingly. Controlled for inflation, during the last 30 years, the highest earning fifth of Canadians increased their pay by 40 per cent while the earnings of the lowest fifth fell by 11 per cent… As physicians, we see the impact of this growing inequality on our patients and communities. Diabetes rates are skyrocketing in poor neighbourhoods. And economic inequality is bad for everyone. For example, less equal societies have much higher rates of violence…. After several years of discussion, five of us launched Doctors for Fair Taxation < http://doctorsforfairtaxation.ca/ >.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | 2 Comments »
Raise taxes on the rich
Mar 03 2012
Rich people are not paying a disproportionate level of taxes. They are, generally, a higher burden on the world as they consume more resources than the rest of us. One of the best ways to equalize their contribution is to raise their taxes considerably.
Tags: budget, ideology, tax
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Food tax: Adding GST to food will benefit the poor, economists say
Feb 24 2012
Smart and Mintz estimate the federal government could raise $39 billion annually if it eliminated the exemptions that now exist on politically touchy items such as medicine, tuition, financial services and especially food. Those new revenues can be used to cut income taxes, fund social services or both, or even to reduce almost in half the 12- to 15-per cent harmonized taxes consumers pay.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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The ‘freedom’ show on the Rideau
Feb. 24, 2012
Conservatism has contradictory impulses. The pursuit of freedom and the pursuit of order run at cross-purposes… the Conservative government has a nationalist bent, evident in its elevation of military values, populist anti-intellectualism, moral certitude on foreign policy, law-and-order fixation and message-control mania. This kind of nationalism requires state-driven conformity, not liberty. And so, while Conservatives are supposed to cherish government that is off the backs of the people, what we have is something closer to the opposite.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights
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The next generation gap: equity and fairness
Feb. 21, 2012
Crises in inequality and governability increasingly feed social instability… meaningful reforms must be both political and economic… perhaps the time has come to develop a more applied principle of intergenerational equity – requiring legislatures, judges, pension fund trustees and, yes, corporate CEOs and boards of directors to consider and be held accountable for the impact current decisions have on future generations’ interests
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax, youth
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Rich have succeeded in keeping tax hikes off the political agenda
Feb 13 2012
Drummond’s long-awaited report… will lay out a deficit-shrinking program of austerity that is expected to have harsh implications for public employees from hospital cleaners to daycare workers, as well as delivering service cuts with devastating impacts on the poor, the sick, women in shelters and the disabled… But… he presents a friendly banker’s face to the affluent, who are to be spared paying any additional taxes as their contribution to the province’s deficit fight. Premier Dalton McGuinty made that clear when he declared tax increases off the table in Drummond’s search for ways to reduce Ontario’s $16-billion deficit.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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UN holds private meeting with native youth
Feb 02 2012
They meet Monday with the UN committee on the rights of the child… The Geneva meeting is small and private — the six youths and the 18-member UN committee. Travelling with them are Ontario Child Advocate Irwin Elman and University of Alberta professor Cindy Blackstock, who is executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society… It is discriminatory not to give First Nations kids the same chances as other Canadian children, said Blackstock.
Tags: Native, poverty, rights, standard of living, youth
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Why care less about the disabled fetus?
Jan. 19, 2012
… if sex selection can be characterized as a social or cultural practice informed and perpetuated by demeaning attitudes toward women that many of us can agree is discriminatory, what about the selection of fetuses on the basis of disability? For those of us living with, or living with someone with, Down syndrome, a cleft lip or a missing limb, the selection against fetuses with these characteristics is as troubling as the selection against female fetuses.
Tags: disabilities, Health, ideology, standard of living, women
Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »
Harper’s very political religion
Jan 28 2012
… freedom of and from religion is a secular principle. A prime minister who promotes it should be commended, not criticized. It is also unfair to accuse Harper of advancing an evangelical Christian agenda — championing only the cause of Christian minorities abroad. His game is more nuanced… Domestic partisan Conservative considerations are being turned into Canadian foreign policy.. In the religious freedom campaign, the Tories have exploited “old country” fault lines among immigrants. Instead of minimizing such divisions here, as has been our tradition, they have fanned them.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, rights
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Property rights could unlock native reform
Jan 28 2012
… underlying title allows First Nation communities to subdivide a portion of their reserve land into fee simple lands for individual members to use. Band members could then use these fee simple lands to generate wealth through mortgages, loans, and buy/sell transactions, much like Canadians do off-reserve, but without any of the hassle of dealing with significant bureaucratic red tape that most members have to endure under the Indian Act.
Tags: Native, participation, privatization, rights, standard of living
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