Posts Tagged ‘featured’
There really is food poverty in Canada
May 19, 2012
… when our governments leave the feeding of the hungry poor to the indignity and frequent inefficiencies of charitable food banks, our federal leaders should not complain when the inadequacies of our food, nutrition and social policies are pointed out by the UN Special Rapporteur… Regrettably food poverty in Canada since the early 1980s has become socially constructed as a matter for charity. Thirty years later the food bank model (imported from the United States) has failed. Food poverty is a political question requiring the priority attention of our governments.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Update on the class war: 1% winning, 99% regrouping
May. 12, 2012
… there’s far more wealth in Canada today than ever before. Per capita GDP is 50 per cent higher (adjusting for inflation) than 30 years ago. Yet most of that wealth has been transferred to the richest Canadians through tax cuts and government subsidies. Since 1980, the ultra-rich have increased their share of the national income from 8.1 per cent to 13 per cent, a shift of $67-billion. Here’s a strange coincidence. The combined federal and provincial deficits now run at about $65-billion annually.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
It’s tougher than ever to enforce your human rights in Ontario
May 09 2012
Six years ago, to speed up a slow, backlogged system that needed reform, Bill 107 privatized human rights enforcement. It took the Human Rights Commission out of screening, investigating and prosecuting individual discrimination cases. It makes discrimination victims investigate and litigate their cases at the tribunal without the commission’s help. Does Bill 107 make lives better for victims of discrimination? Far from it… We hope this current Human Rights Code Review will recognize these amply-documented problems, and make strong recommendations to improve Ontario’s troubled human rights system.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, featured, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Stealth and misdirection are constants of Harper’s majority
May 3, 2012
The recent budget… signals “the crushing of the progressive state,” conjuring images of “the ’20s and ’30s, a time of massive inequality and personal vulnerability which presaged the Great Depression… The policy direction has firmed up, perceptibly… What has not changed is the refusal to explain what it is doing, still less why. All is stealth and indirection, surprise and ambiguity, as before. Big changes, when they happen, are done suddenly, casually, without warning or justification, as if they were of no importance: buried deep in an omnibus bill
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Violence problems transcend gender
April 29, 2012
Transition houses are full of women whose health and well-being are threatened due to violence, addictions, poverty, compromised life skills and a host of other issues. The focus, though, of them and us, men vs. women, is a disturbing trend. Can we not agree that “hurt people hurt people”? The ones who do damage are the ones who are damaged themselves. If energies and money focused on this, rather on alienating and criminalizing an entire gender, we may come closer to dealing with the real issue – hurt people hurt people.
Tags: disabilities, featured, Health, mental Health, poverty, women
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Dalton McGuinty and Andrea Horwath have cut a sensible deal to avert an election.
Apr 23 2012
The wealth surtax is projected to affect a mere 0.2 per cent of taxpayers and will raise $470 million next year. But the money won’t go to new programs as the NDP wanted. McGuinty plans to use it, conservatively, to pay down the deficit. “We all gave a little bit,” said McGuinty, calling the surtax a “sensible compromise” to make minority government work. It’s more than that; it’s good policy. But the only reason he’s agreeing to it now is that recent polling has shown it to be a popular idea. Support for higher taxes for the very wealthy runs in the 80 per cent range. There are few things that any government, anywhere can do to generate public support numbers like that.
Tags: budget, child care, disabilities, featured, Health, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Thousands descend on Queen’s Park to protest McGuinty budget
Apr 21 2012
More than 15,000 protesters from labour unions and community organizations across the province rallied outside Ontario’s Legislature Saturday afternoon to vent their fury over the minority Liberal government’s austerity-focused budget. “We’re sending a signal to Dalton McGuinty that the budget he’s introduced is grossly unfair”… “They need to step back. Touching pensions, it’s just not the right way to go”… “All we want to see is a little bit of fairness. The very least we can ask for is that the very top earners in Ontario put in a little bit more when times are tough.”
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, pensions, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | 1 Comment »
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
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
At 30, the Charter of Rights has reshaped our society, for the better
Apr 14 2012
[It] transformed us from being a parliamentary democracy to a constitutional one… At root, the Charter empowers the people… That is its great, enduring value… Under a series of vigilant judges who did not hesitate to strike down bad laws, or to “read in” rights when justice required, the Charter has come to affect most aspects of our lives. As Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé once put it, memorably, the Charter “stretched the cords of liberty” and enfranchised us all.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
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