Archive for the ‘Inclusion Debates’ Category
Liberals must commit to protect vulnerable
Jan. 30, 2012
Protecting the vulnerable is what liberalism is all about. In today’s terms, it means improving the level of support to those who must rely on social assistance. It means increasing the inventory of affordable housing for low-income tenants. It means assisting those who face a future perplexed by dementia. It means generating meaningful employment opportunities for the unemployed and under-employed. It means helping those criminal offenders who are candidates for rehabilitation to find a productive and law-abiding future. It means a health-care system that provides quality care to all our citizens…
Tags: disabilities, homelessness, ideology, Native, poverty, standard of living, women, youth
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New relationship needed with Crown or risk widespread unrest: chiefs
Jan.11, 2012
Native chiefs say Prime Minister Stephen Harper must come out of this month’s First Nations summit willing to forge a new relationship with aboriginals or risk widespread unrest… Many have concerns about the lack of housing, clean running water and education in their communities, but virtually all say they don’t expect to solve those issues in a day. They want the prime minister to commit to holding at least one first ministers meeting on aboriginal issues and to appoint a commissioner to ensure that treaties signed more than 100 years ago are being followed.
Tags: ideology, Native, rights, standard of living
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Religious-freedom office is a blessing, non-believers
Jan. 09, 2012
… Canada is a secular state, meaning that, as a state, it is of no religion and enforces none. The first point underscores the ongoing need for the promotion of religious freedom. The second confirms the appropriateness of a country such as Canada undertaking it… There’s a lot of careless invocation these days of “separation of church and state.” This isn’t a Canadian doctrine, and is only very dubiously an American one… [but that] doesn’t preclude a public stand on behalf of religious freedom. On the contrary, it implies one.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, rights
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Top 10 reasons why Office of Religious Freedom is a bad idea
Jan. 7, 2012
“Freedom of religion is one of the first things in the Charter, it’s one of the first things in the Bill of Rights, it’s front and centre in the UN Declaration of Human Rights – it’s an essential human right,” Baird told The Canadian Press… I can’t recall Baird or his government being particularly enthusiastic about the Charter before – his boss, Stephen Harper, once called it “seriously flawed” because it promotes equality… this initiative – which the Opposition has largely been silent about — is a very bad idea. Here’s 10 reasons why:
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, rights
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The high cost of poverty
Jan 02 2012
In 2009, the first year of (Ontario’s poverty reduction) strategy, the minimum wage jumped up and, most importantly, the Ontario Child Benefit was increased by hundreds of dollars helping to raise low-income families out of poverty The government has also started a process to reform social assistance… But (it) is still a long way off its goal to lift 90,000 children out of poverty… it’s troubling that the third progress report on Ontario’s poverty reduction strategy spends most of its 26 pages rehashing earlier successes and is light on new measures.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, youth
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David Pecaut was ‘a popcorn machine of ideas’
Dec 29 2011
…the Pecaut Centre for Social Enterprise… will have three purposes. • Its primary objective will be to develop Toronto’s next generation of social entrepreneurs… • Its second objective will be to act as a knowledge hub for the not-for-profit sector. It will grapple with one of the biggest challenges they face: How to measure the value (or in business terms, the return on investment) of what they do… • Its third objective will be to take promising social enterprises from startups to sustainable ventures… (as) the not-for-profit sector must be part of a strong, creative, compassionate Canada.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, standard of living
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Poverty costs us all
Dec. 16, 2011
“… most people don’t recognize what poverty costs us… Over the last 30 years, even when the economy has been at it best, we still had 10% of the population living in poverty. With the recent recession, the numbers are higher… one in three people living in poverty have jobs and an education… Politicians need to hear from constituents that poverty is an issue and something needs to be done”… Kleinsmith has shared the petition with a number of her contacts and hopes others can do the same. Bridges has a copy of it online — www.bridgeschc.ca — that can be printed.
Tags: budget, Health, housing, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Alienated from what? By whom?
Dec. 8, 2011
A new study… found non-voters are not apathetic or ignorant of the political system… politics only became a source of frustration through unpleasant interactions with political institutions… Is it possible that when it comes to political engagement, most Canadians are… neither alienated nor engaged until they are asked by a social scientist, at which point they just fall back on the default public vocabulary of a broken machinery of government manipulated by knavish politicians.
Tags: participation
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For Kashechewan, read Attawapiskat
Dec. 07, 2011
We are engaged in national intellectual escapism if we think these communities will escape from their debilitating cycles of problems without something more than a subsistence economy. Without one, dependence will prevail. With dependence comes lack of self-esteem, social pathologies and family troubles… A policy problem does exist with the lower per-student funding level for native education. But if such a cadre could be developed, why would highly educated (in a formal sense) young people stay in places like Attawapiskat when few jobs beckon, except for the band council or maybe a school or health clinic?
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Native, standard of living, youth
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Choices for First Nations
Dec 01 2011
One solution, for instance, might be for the federal and provincial governments to provide remote First Nations with special funds (either through a one-time grant or a low-interest loan) to invest or partner with larger First Nations to pursue economic development opportunities in the south… A more radical solution would be to provide lucrative incentives for indigenous members to move out of remote communities and into places where standards of living are higher, costs of living lower, and economic opportunities more available.
Tags: economy, Native, poverty, rights, standard of living
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