Posts Tagged ‘economy’

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For Ed Broadbent, socialism meant providing for average people — and fighting for the cause

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

For Ed, democratic socialism meant waging a constant battle against the inequality-producing tendencies of the market. It meant institutions that were democratically accountable shaping markets to serve the needs of people not private interests… The right to affordable housing and dental care, for example… ought to be guaranteed rights of citizenship. Being rights, not privileges, they should be available to everyone

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Posted in Governance History | No Comments »


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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Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »


Swelling CEO salaries highlight income inequality

Monday, January 22nd, 2024

The average worker received an average wage increase of three per cent in 2022 while prices rose by more than twice that amount… The financial disconnect between CEOs and the employees who work for them underscores broader issues of income inequality and affordability. We need quality research and robust debate on how to address income inequality and stagnating wages for those not privileged to work in the c-suites.

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Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »


Canada unveils new restrictions on work permits for international students, spouses

Monday, January 22nd, 2024

Starting on Sept. 1, the federal government will stop issuing postgraduate work permits to international students who graduate from programs provided under so-called Public College-Private Partnerships, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said… “I’m not the minister of post-secondary education underfunding. I’m the minister of immigration. Clearly in the last decade or so or even longer, post-secondary institutions in Canada have been underfunded by provinces.”

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Ford government’s controversial plan for private medical clinics will begin this spring

Sunday, January 21st, 2024

The Ontario government will approve more privately owned clinics to provide diagnostic services like CTs and MRIs and surgeries starting April 1… critics fear will bleed the public health system of doctors, nurses and other resources at a time when patients face record waits in hospital emergency rooms… Ontario currently has more than 900 private clinics in operation, mainly providing X-rays and other diagnostic services, and many of them predate [this] government.

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Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »


Canadian CEO pay breaks all records, reflecting a new Gilded Age for Canada’s rich: report

Wednesday, January 17th, 2024

In 2022, the average worker in Canada got an average pay raise of $1,800, or three per cent. But, prices went up by 6.8 per cent in 2022… This report proposes that governments address the rampant income inequality between the rich and the rest of us through four taxation measures that both disincentivize extreme CEO compensation and redistribute CEOs’ extreme income to Canadians on the lower end of the income spectrum.

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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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Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »


Canadians want their governments to tackle poverty, but nobody can agree on what to do

Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, lone-parent households, recent immigrants and single adults aged 45 to 64 have a poverty rate that is double or triple that of the rest of the population. More than two-thirds of working-age individuals living in poverty belong to at least one of these groups… Better universal access to affordable quality physical and mental-health care, early childhood care, and social housing are some of the win-win policy actions that encourage both growth and poverty reduction.

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Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »


Surrendering to the provinces doesn’t bring peace to the federation. It only emboldens them

Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

The thesis… that peace with the provinces is the highest aim of federal policy, and that the way to achieve it is to give them everything they want – or at least to never give them any offence – is a recipe for national paralysis. There are issues on which federal leadership is essential… how we got here [is] not because the federal government has been too hard on the provinces, but because it has been altogether too indulgent of them.

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Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »


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