Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Ontario: Brutal under-funding punishes health and education
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
What’s happening in health care, education, and other services tells a story of a government that simply refuses to invest in the services Ontarians need… The current crisis in Ontario health care stems not only from the pandemic, but also from bad public policy… coupled with tax cuts that have been implemented, it results in a shrinking public sector and weakened public services. That opens the door to increased private profit-making off of the public services that Ontarians hold dear.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
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Laugh at the farcical scandals of John Tory and Doug Ford but the joke’s on the powerless
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
… for-profit nursing homes had four times as many COVID-19 deaths as city-run homes… Ontario announced funding for new nursing home beds in 2022… adding 200 new police won’t decrease wait times for police to respond to calls. It doesn’t support the idea that more police equals less crime, either. But data shows reducing poverty can reduce crime… The proposed 2023 budget cuts $4.3 million from jobs and social services.
Tags: budget, Health, homelessness, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, tax
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Ontario needs to invest in the non-profit business model for health and social services
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
In Canada, we have a long tradition of non-profits working in partnership with governments to build community infrastructure and provide services. But for the past 20 years, for-profit corporations have been taking over these services and the results have been disastrously poor, including short cuts in service provision and understaffing… Accessibility is top-of mind as service provision is based on community needs, regardless of ability to pay or complexity of care.
Tags: budget, ideology, privatization
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Why voting for municipal action on affordable housing is in everyone’s interest
Monday, October 24th, 2022
Many people with mental illness and addictions, older adults, people with disabilities and victims of violence can only maintain housing with help. Encampments are a symptom of inadequate supportive housing. And demonstration projects have shown that supportive housing for high-need clients is cost effective, reducing service use in other sectors like hospitals, emergency services, policing and the criminal justice system. But this type of supported housing is woefully undersupplied.
Tags: housing, poverty, standard of living
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Alternative Federal Budget 2023: Rising to the challenge
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
… The ongoing impact of Covid-19, inflation gnawing at stagnant paycheques, a health care system squeezed to the limit, the climate crisis, and the ongoing need to dismantle colonialism and systemic racism… The AFB advances solutions and places the responsibility for change squarely on the federal government, working with the provinces and territories, to rise to the challenge…
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, Indigenous, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
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Pierre Poilievre vs. the elites (unless they’re rich)
Sunday, September 18th, 2022
Decades of regressive tax measures, particularly lower rates of tax on business and capital, have had a significant role to play in wealth inequality. Progressive adjustments to our tax system could help reduce it. Yet it seems no amount of wealth disparity or empirical evidence can sidetrack Poilievre from his mission to make tax a four-letter word.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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What is Doug Ford hiding in his mandate letters to government ministers?
Thursday, August 4th, 2022
Ever since he became premier in 2018, Ford has refused to let the public see his mandate letters to his cabinet ministers. Indeed, Ford is so desperate to keep the letters secret that he’s waging a costly legal battle to prevent their release. It’s a fight he has lost all the way to Ontario’s top court and is now appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada… he’s also keeping the letters secret even from key bureaucrats who help analyze and formulate government policy.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
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Healthcare needs collaboration, not finger-pointing
Monday, July 18th, 2022
The health-care crisis is different in nature from the pandemic, but alike in urgency. As such, it is a challenge of sufficient scale and complexity to be addressed at the first ministers’ level. This is especially true when [negotiating] pharmacare and national dental care programs… Collaboration on those files and addressing the crisis must involve more than cheque-writing that pours more money into systems proving inefficient. It must involve systemic and structural reforms to help make the healthcare system more sustainable – and easily accessible.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical, standard of living
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PCs form “majority” government with 40.84% of the vote: Ontario voters cheated by first-past-the-post
Sunday, June 5th, 2022
Only 40.84% of Ontario voters supported the PCs, yet the voting system has handed Doug Ford’s PCs 67% of the seats and 100% of the power. The election results were a gross misrepresentation of what voters said with their ballots… Voter turnout fell to 43.54%. That means the current “majority” government is supported by 17.77% of eligible voters.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
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It’s time to unite the left in Ontario
Thursday, June 2nd, 2022
Liberals, NDP and Green members share many overlapping aims and would be compatible in a merger. They would also produce a more accurate representation of what the majority wants: evidence-based, compassionate policies; a healthy economy; better quality education and health care; affordable housing; serious climate-change work and so on.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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