Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category

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The crisis hitting small-town Ontario

Saturday, February 24th, 2024

Communities across the province are grappling with overdoses and appealing for more resources to deal with the crisis… According to the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, the opioid death rate is three times higher in northern than southern Ontario… While we often hear complaints about the lack of sufficient treatment and harm reduction facilities in large cities like Toronto, smaller communities are lucky if they have any at all.

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For Ed Broadbent, socialism meant providing for average people — and fighting for the cause

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

For Ed, democratic socialism meant waging a constant battle against the inequality-producing tendencies of the market. It meant institutions that were democratically accountable shaping markets to serve the needs of people not private interests… The right to affordable housing and dental care, for example… ought to be guaranteed rights of citizenship. Being rights, not privileges, they should be available to everyone

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Bleeding the patient: tracking five years of Ontario revenue reductions

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

Since 2018, the Ministry of Finance has made close to 30 policy changes that have cut taxes, cut fees, and paid out large sums in the form of tax credits. As the table below shows, those changes are draining a minimum of $7.7 billion from the provincial treasury in 2023-24… it looks like it’s coming out of public services… successive governments have deliberately bled themselves dry and then pled poverty afterward.

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Ontario is dead last in program spending—again

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

In 2022, Ontario’s program spending per capita was $3,863 less than the average of the other provinces. This means that for every dollar per person spent on programs in other provinces, Ontario spent 75 cents… there is no evidence—and no one is claiming—that Ontario’s low spending is the result of some magical efficiency in program delivery here. There’s nothing efficient about having too few nurses.

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Surrendering to the provinces doesn’t bring peace to the federation. It only emboldens them

Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

The thesis… that peace with the provinces is the highest aim of federal policy, and that the way to achieve it is to give them everything they want – or at least to never give them any offence – is a recipe for national paralysis. There are issues on which federal leadership is essential… how we got here [is] not because the federal government has been too hard on the provinces, but because it has been altogether too indulgent of them.

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Seeking common ground at the Thanksgiving table

Friday, October 6th, 2023

We need to understand that the anger that folks are feeling… is based on real issues – even if the target of that anger is, to put it charitably, misplaced. That misdirection is often fed by politicians, capitalists, and the well-funded propagandists whose job is to keep the working majority squabbling amongst ourselves… we also have a responsibility to try to move the needle a little bit towards justice.

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Pierre Poilievre: Same old guy, same old policies

Thursday, September 14th, 2023

Despite all the hype about his image makeover and how he’s a changed man… he continues to fuel the rage and hate that resides in many of his hard-line followers who despise Trudeau, the federal government and, in many cases, anything that they believe restricts their “freedom.” … his lack of policy specifics to date on key issues facing Canada is stunning.

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How to Defeat Poilievre’s Politics of Abandonment

Thursday, September 14th, 2023

For Poilievre freedom itself is conceived in opposition to government… The profit motive is what drives efficiency, no matter what “good” is being considered. Privatization then — whether in health or seniors care, housing, child care or transit — is the solution to the rising costs of living. The individual trumps the collective, competition trumps co-operation, private interests are king. Never mind that unregulated capitalism traps many in lives robbed of freedoms from want and drudgery.

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Liberals’ fortunes hinge on Holland’s pharmacare: coalition director

Thursday, September 14th, 2023

“Only a single-payer Pharmacare system will achieve the savings, efficiencies and fairness that is the hallmark of Canadian Medicare. Anything less will be unacceptable to Canadians and the NDP,” NDP health critic Don Davies declared in June, backing the view of Dr. Eric Hoskins. Public health care experts and organizations like the Canadian Health Coalition, and every commission that’s looked at the problem, agree.

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Alternative Federal Budget 2024 – Building Momentum: A budget for now and the future

Monday, August 28th, 2023

The AFB will tax extreme wealth by introducing a progressive wealth tax… restore the corporate income tax rate… to 20 per cent… [and] implement a windfall profits tax… Canadians really can have nice things – if we make our tax system more progressive and make smart investments in public services, income supports, and social and physical infrastructure.

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