Archive for the ‘Inclusion Policy Context’ Category
Charities silenced by the taxman
May. 16, 2012
… in this case, the law gagging charities is most definitely wrong because it infringes on free speech… democracy would be better served if charities had more freedom to advance ideas and to debate issues. Certainly, this would help ensure voters are better informed when it comes to policies… this is something Mr. Harper should already understand. In fact, as a conservative, he should be ideologically opposed to government rules and regulations that only serve to stifle free expression.
Tags: ideology, philanthropy, rights, standard of living, tax
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Canada must actively recruit the best and brightest immigrants
May. 05, 2012
Ottawa must do more to ensure newcomers can convert their foreign credentials and job experience. It must address discrimination in the labour market, and gate-keeping by professional associations. But first and foremost, Canada needs to change its mentality around immigration. It should be designed as much around whom Canada wants, as who wants Canada… Canada must learn to compete. Educated professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, will not waste their most productive years trying just to get through the door.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, immigration, multiculturalism, standard of living
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A call for Canadian charities to become politically active
Apr 21 2012
Even among those charities that have an interest in public policy, there is a reluctance to engage, and few play anywhere close to the 10 per cent level… Since governments have shed much of their policy capacity in the last few decades, they need good ideas from outside, and particularly from those working close to the coal face of society’s problems… Many charities who weren’t aware of the 10 per cent rule can now gear up to add a public policy dimension to their work, to begin to get a grip on one of the biggest levers of change for the better.
Tags: participation, philanthropy, rights, standard of living
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Stephen Harper’s attack on charities doesn’t go far enough
Apr 20 2012
… you and I are both on the hook for a portion of $2.8 million in so-called charitable donations that the Fraser Institute raised in 2010. Its donors too received charitable tax receipts. I don’t know about you. But I resent having to subsidize an organization that spends much its time fulminating for neo-liberalism. For the same reason, I have no interest in helping to fund the Canadian Constitution 2005 Foundation, which agitates against medicare… So what is to be done? The simplest answer is to scrap charitable tax receipts entirely. Distinguishing between real and bogus charities is an almost impossible task. Even established charities can be controversial.
Tags: featured, ideology, philanthropy, rights, standard of living, tax
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Harper throws National Council of Welfare on the scrap heap
Apr 12 2012
Since 1962, the National Council of Welfare had held up a mirror to the nation, highlighting the pockets of poverty and warning policy-makers of the consequences of neglecting those in need. It gave non-profit groups the facts they needed to speak credibly about hardship in a land of plenty. It tracked the emergence and growth of a crack in society between the comfortably well-off and the struggling. And it brought together social policy thinkers to find solutions to poverty… Now it’s gone.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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“A Tale of Two Reports” [Poverty in Ontario]
March 12, 2012
Poverty does not just happen. There are things that we do in society that create poverty and inequality. And there are things we can do to reduce poverty and inequality. Therefore, to respect the letter and the spirit of Ontario’s landmark poverty reduction act, passed with unanimous support from all parties in the legislature, we call for these changes to the 2012 Ontario Budget: raise social assistance rates to at least cover the rise in the cost of living; immediately implement the full Ontario Child Benefit; – do not make structural changes to social assistance programs before hearing the recommendations from the Social Assistance Review Commissioners.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Picking prisons ahead of citizenship
April 5, 2012
Despite the fact that Katimavik is a highly valuable program that more than pays for itself, the government has shut it down for what can only be ideological reasons. Katimavik is the country’s oldest and largest youth engagement program, open to all Canadians aged 17-21…. The federal budget states that Katimavik is being cut because it serves, “a very small number of participants at an excessive per-person cost.” (page 218). A 2006 report called Social and Economic Impact Study of the Katimavik Program, however, demonstrated that Katimavik actually generates excess value in the communities where it operates… Most of this value is invested in rural and remote communities.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, youth
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Why the federal government picked a fight with charities
April 3, 2012
Stephen Harper’s majority government has issued a stern warning to charities to quit doing advocacy, and behave more like charities, in the most paternalistic sense of that term. If you represent a charity committed to eradicating poverty, do you need to stop advocating for poor people? Any government with a keen sense of the ephemeral nature of its own political future should pay close attention to what groups have to say, even if they abhor those views. Sadly, this government has demonstrated, time and again, its utter contempt for the views of groups that disagree with them, even groups that can back up their advocacy with evidence.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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Ottawa axes National Council on Welfare
Mar 30 2012
The council’s annual report on welfare incomes in Canada is the only comprehensive analysis of social assistance across the country and how it interacts with federal benefits… The council has also produced authoritative reports on child care, child benefits and low incomes in Canada. Its latest report, “The Dollars and Sense of Solving Poverty,” released in August, showed that it would cost $12.6 billion to give some 3.5 million poor Canadians enough money to live above the poverty line. However, the economic and social consequences of poverty cost Canadians twice as much, the report found… “Without the information, no one will be able to report on how many people this Conservative government is leaving behind,”
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Supreme Court ruling in case of disabled woman admirable
Feb. 13, 2012
Not all testimony is equal; a judge decides how much weight to give it. But to cut off the possibility of testimony from disabled adults because they have trouble verbalizing what they understand of truth and lies is an arbitrary approach. It doesn’t get at what they know, just at what they can explain about what they know… mentally disabled adults should not be arbitrarily denied…
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, mental Health, rights, youth
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