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StatsCan, or StatsCan’t?

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

May 2, 2012
Just two months ago, economists and policy wonks were cheering the news that Statistics Canada, the much lauded government statistics office, had eliminated fees for its online databanks, making millions of figures available for free. Now the quantity of that data is under threat from the biggest budget cuts in recent memory… Nearly half of the agency’s 5,700 staff have received the layoff notices… Three-quarters of the savings would come from cutting programs, meaning fewer surveys, less data and less analysis.

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Posted in Governance Delivery System | 1 Comment »


Smart public policy

Friday, April 6th, 2012

April 6, 2012
Our investments have removed 20,000 children from poverty. The income tax cuts we introduced in 2009 mean 90,000 low-income people pay no income taxes at all. We are committed to increasing the Ontario Child Benefit to $1,310, although on a slower schedule than we would have liked. The choices we are making are fair, balanced and reasonable. Our government has presented a strong plan to strengthen the economy and protect the gains we have all made in education and health care.

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Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »


Why the federal government picked a fight with charities

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

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.

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Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »


Austerity isn’t for everyone

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Feb. 17, 2012
… the austerity refrain is the same: protect the rich, hit the middle class and leave the poor for later. This is not an argument against frugality, or in defence of sacred cows. The sacred cows are able to defend themselves. But it is an illustration of what can happen when political leaders, and their advisers, live in a sheltered world where seniors golf in Florida all winter… They forget — or don’t care — that most Canadians don’t live there.

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Government faces Aboriginal challenge

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Feb. 14, 2012
Facts that could prove the federal government is discriminating against aboriginal children by underfunding child-welfare services on reserves need to be heard in court, said lawyers for the Canadian Human Rights Commission… The complaint argued the underfunding of child-welfare services on reserves leads to poverty, poor housing, substance abuse and a vast overrepresentation of aboriginal children in state care. However, the federal government argues that because it sends funds to band managers – who administer the services – the government cannot be held responsible for the services delivered.

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Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »


Harper wins when voters snooze

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

Jan. 27, 2012
Many [voters] have given up – in cynicism or despair. They turn their back on politics, don’t bother to vote, even imagine it is fashionable to remain aloof. They claim all politicians are the same, but they aren’t. They claim it doesn’t matter which party holds power, but it does… Nothing seems to penetrate public indifference – to Harper’s benefit… waiting four more years for Conservatives to self-destruct – isn’t a strategy. It’s a confession of impotence.

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Policy, not technology is killing Canadian manufacturing

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Jan. 24, 2012
… technology can explain some of the job loss, but not most of it. It certainly cannot explain the disproportionate carnage in Canadian manufacturing… The loss of 500,000 manufacturing jobs in Canada over the last decade was far more dramatic than most jurisdictions. Many factors contributed to this miserable record… [but] Caterpillar’s demand to cut Canadian wages in half has nothing to do with technology. It reflects power: a global company’s ability to isolate and threaten workers, one factory at a time. And it reflects policy: an active decision by governments (like Canada’s) to let them do it.

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Posted in Employment Policy Context | 1 Comment »


$100-billion in expenditures that no one notices

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Jan. 23, 2012
Tax expenditures serve a public policy purpose without the need of an army of bureaucrats in administration. They can be implemented virtually overnight, and can be easily tweaked. [but]… they are very difficult to take away. Canada is a leader in the use of tax expenditures in the sense that our uptake is more than 50 per cent above the OECD average… In the past five years the value of tax expenditures has risen 2.3 per cent, far less than the increase in the size of government… [however] Tax expenditures represent a major claim on the federal treasury and their economic and social benefits need to be put to the test.

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Canadians want federal health-care role

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Jan. 16, 2012
The national survey by Ipsos Reid was commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association, which represents the nation’s doctors… – 97 per cent of Canadians think the federal government’s responsibility for the Canada Health Act is important. In return for receiving federal money, provinces must adhere to the principles of medicare as outlined in the Act. Those principles include accessibility to services, universal availability, and portability from province to province…

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Should Ontario keep funding separate Catholic schools? No.

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Jan. 3, 2012
Ontario is in the anachronistic position of being the only province that publicly funds one type of religious school (Catholic) to the exclusion of all others. Massive, wasteful duplication and the religious segregation of students are some of the results of this system. Recent events have also shown Catholic doctrine is incompatible with the equality rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms while other religious groups, now seeking access to public schools and public funding, have pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of Ontario’s education policy.

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Posted in Education Policy Context | 1 Comment »


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