Archive for the ‘Equality Delivery System’ Category
In Canada, unlike the U.S., the American dream lives on
Jan. 16, 2012
… the U.S. is richer, but it’s also significantly more unequal, and a lot less mobile… For now, at least, the dream of upward mobility in Canada is still alive. Canadians can thank a legacy of sound public policy and a more progressive tax system… [But] Ottawa and most of the provinces are running large budget deficits, and education and health care are already targets as governments hunt for savings. [and] Rising income inequality is chipping away at the opportunities of future generations… wealthy Canadians may be forming exclusionary institutions in a drift toward Americanization.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
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Fighting poverty
Dec. 26, 2011
In 2000, the member states of the United Nations declared… the Millennium Development Goals – a set of eight goals and 21 targets dealing with health, education, hunger, gender equality and environmental sustainability… The targets are, in theory, measurable… (But) aid policy doesn’t require wealthy countries to make major domestic changes.
Tags: budget, globalization, Health, poverty, standard of living
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Crime bill cuts concessions to aboriginal circumstance
Dec. 6, 2011
… Canada has failed to come to terms with the over-incarceration of aboriginal offenders… The Gladue decision urges courts to be more creative with sentencing, to look deeper into causes and solutions and to draw from aboriginal traditions. One of these traditions is restorative justice, which seeks to bring victims and offenders together, enabling offenders to make meaningful amends for the harm they have done. The judicial tool that has allowed for such creative sentencing is the conditional sentence… Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, however, will continue to cut away at the ability of courts to impose these conditional sentences.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, Native, rights
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Third World conditions — First World ignorance
Nov 30 2011
When emergency situations occur, First Nations like Attawapiskat must either use the money provided for their basic needs or they must call upon the federal and provincial governments to provide financial assistance. Often they end up using their existing funding to address crisis situations in their communities, with no reimbursement from any level of government. As a result, they go into deficit… It’s not the time for finger pointing or attempting to convince the Canadian public that loads of money has already been spent on aboriginal peoples in Canada, and that accountability and transparency are the answer.
Tags: budget, housing, Native, poverty, standard of living
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McGuinty vows to improve First Nations schools
Nov 22 2011
It is time for Ottawa to engage in an “important” conversation about “unleashing” the provincial government to help improve standards, he said. “They are not good at education. They don’t do education, we do education. And there are now international authorities who say we have the best public education system in the English-speaking world.” Ottawa must correct the funding imbalances so native kids receive the same funding as other children in Ontario schools, McGuinty added. “Let us take this on. Let us work with First Nations and develop a curriculum that speaks to their needs and aspirations”…
Tags: Native, rights, standard of living, youth
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Unions are key to fighting inequity
Nov 16 2011
The assault on the middle class has taken many forms, including tax cuts to the rich, the shredding of valuable public services, and globalization that allowed companies, especially banks, to pillage at will. The attack also included moves by governments to make it more difficult for people to join unions, and to limit the ability of those unions to bargain effectively on behalf of their members… Unions have traditionally contributed to a healthy middle class in a number of ways…
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Ontario legal aid plan to relax qualifying rules
Oct 27 2011
Now, 16 years after the Ontario government tightened the rules in a massive overhaul of legal aid, it seems that’s about to change… they plan to loosen the rules over the next three years so more people are eligible for free help from a lawyer. The expansion, they say, will be funded through savings on the administrative side… The report notes Legal Aid Ontario’s cut-offs are substantially below the low-income threshold set by Statistics Canada… Canada is behind much of the world when it comes to legal aid qualifying guidelines…
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Higher taxation is back on the table
Oct. 25, 2011
Social justice is not a phrase to which modern-day Conservatives are winsomely attracted. But they might do well to pay heed. Both here and abroad, the climate is changing… The Milton Friedman foundation, from which the past three decades of economics have taken their cue, is on shaky ground… the long run of wreckage being witnessed now may result in another great turn… Canadians have a history, until recently at least, of accepting higher taxation levels as the price for a more just and egalitarian society.
Tags: featured, participation, standard of living, tax
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Landlords face no punishment for discrimination in online ads
Oct 6, 2011
Only Muslims need apply. It’s the exact kind of specifications the Ontario Human Rights Commission recently warned landlords against putting in their online classified ads —any denial of a prospective tenant due to race, ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability, among other things, is grounds for discrimination according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s housing policy and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Tags: housing, multiculturalism, rights, standard of living
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Binnie’s wise words on unclogging courts
Sep. 28, 2011
Murder trials that once took five to seven days now take five to seven months to complete, and sometimes even last for years… Civil trials have doubled in length over 10 years, to 25.7 hours on average (she cited Vancouver figures). “As the delay increases, swift, predictable justice, which is the most powerful deterrent of crime, vanishes.”
Tags: participation, rights, standard of living
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