Posts Tagged ‘budget’

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Missing teeth: Who’s left out of Canada’s dental care plan

Tuesday, January 30th, 2024

The choice is twofold: (1) Continue to create new medical care programs with a fill-in-the-gaps model and an income cap, like Canada is currently doing on dental care, or (2) Align new medical care programs with the principles of the Canada Health Act, which is based on the underlying principle of health care for all. The findings in this analysis of Canada’s nascent national dental care plan might also be relevant to the much anticipated announcement of a national pharmacare plan.

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It’s time for OHIP to cover all forms of prescription contraception

Tuesday, January 30th, 2024

Who’s left out? Anyone older than 25 without a private health-care plan, temporary foreign workers in between contracts, people with refugee status, international students… In short: people with shifting economic and living realities and those for whom an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy would likely be especially destabilizing… Control over one’s own fertility is inherently tied to human dignity. A money-saving, life-improving policy that supports this should be a no-brainer.

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The risks of ending safer supply drugs programs

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

21 of 24 federally funded safer supply programs are in jeopardy, as their contracts will expire in March. And with just two months until then, the feds have given no indication that they’ll renew their commitment to any of them. Ottawa’s silence on the matter is all the more disturbing given the recent, dramatic increase in overdose deaths — and the mounting evidence in support of safer supply.

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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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What the cap on international students means for Doug Ford’s government 

Friday, January 26th, 2024

Ontario’s post-secondary sector has become increasingly reliant on the high tuition fees paid by foreign students and has recruited them in staggering numbers… Those numbers are to be cut in half, the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller said this week. Deciding how to divvy up that far slimmer allocation of international students among Ontario’s universities and colleges will be up to the provincial government. 

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No end to the ER crisis without investments and addressing workers’ concerns

Wednesday, January 17th, 2024

We recently estimated that dealing with those pressures and bringing back the quality of care in our hospitals to an acceptable standard would require a $1.25 billion annual investment after offsetting costs of inflation. But so far, the Ford government is letting the hospitals deteriorate while it sits on $5.4 billion in contingency funding. If this government is serious about addressing the hospital crisis, it must commit to historic investments immediately.

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Ontario’s universities face a looming crisis. ‘Efficiencies’ aren’t the answer

Sunday, January 14th, 2024

Neither domestic nor foreign students can afford a tuition increase, yet universities can’t make ends meet without more funding. Ontario student funding is already the lowest in the country… first and foremost, the Ford government needs to increase per-student funding to institutions by at least the 10 per cent its own panel recommended and prepare for more increases down the road.

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Welfare rates now $200 a month below the Harris cuts of 1995

Saturday, January 6th, 2024

… inflation over two PC tenures since Bill Davis and Frank Miller has risen 35.2 per cent with no increases to Ontario Works and a total of just 12 per cent for ODSP. The last PC Premier to raise OW rates was Bill Davis 39 years ago in 1985… The cumulative effect of multidecade inaction — whether on housing or climate change — is now coming home to roost. Just look at food bank usage.

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Critical nursing shortage puts patients at risk

Saturday, December 30th, 2023

As the health care crisis rages unabated across the country, it is nurses who are holding our health systems together through grit, determination and a shocking amount of overtime… Fixing the nursing shortage is not just about adding more nurses to the system; it’s about addressing the conditions that have created this dire crisis… Relying on excessive overtime or costly private nurse agencies as short-term fixes only exacerbates the systemic challenges facing health care.

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