Posts Tagged ‘globalization’
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There’s a fix to disinformation: Make social media algorithms transparent
Thursday, March 17th, 2022
In the period of newspaper and broadcast dominance, anyone could find out what news their neighbours were consuming just by opening the paper or turning on the TV. In the social media era, many of those interactions are dark. The solution is algorithmic transparency. But this is easier said than done, because the algorithms are the special sauce in the platforms… So far, lawmakers have listened politely, but not acted.
Tags: featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Don’t be fooled by Ontario’s ‘minimum wage’ for gig workers
Friday, March 4th, 2022
Ontario’s manipulative ‘minimum wage’ is an attempt to forestall genuine legislative and regulatory changes… workers at gig platforms already have the right to unionize through normal channels, and achieve genuine collective bargaining rights—they don’t need any special ‘law’, just clarification that they are indeed workers (whether employees or dependent contractors) not independent businesses.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Ottawa can strike a blow against precarity with stronger protections for gig workers
Monday, February 28th, 2022
What is really needed to stop the spread of misclassification is to start with the presumption that a worker is an employee, unless a case can be made that they are a bona fide independent contractor. A clear and relatively simple test can be established to determine whether someone is a legitimate contractor — i.e., do they set their own prices, perform work that is not the company’s “core” business, and have their own business doing the same work that they market independently? — or a misclassified employee.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Is there a made-in-Canada solution to high inflation?
Saturday, January 1st, 2022
Inflation and the pandemic have a lot in common: both attack household incomes, both hit low-income households hardest, and both demand government action to support incomes. Social assistance rates must rise, as they should have years ago. Minimum wages must rise. Federal transfers to low-income Canadians should increase. Painful 20th century policy prescriptions to cut inflation by squeezing the life out of the economy, through increasing interest rates and reducing government supports, are no answer to our 21st century problems. They will only make our problems worse.
Tags: child care, economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The migrant worker floodgates have opened. It’s a decision we might come to regret
Wednesday, December 15th, 2021
… public policy is rowing against market forces and demographic trends, to keep things cheap. The larger the share of migrant workers in a job market, the lower the wage growth. In our endless search for a cheap deal, let’s not pit ourselves as consumers against ourselves as workers… This nation of immigrants, the tenth-largest economy in the world, has two wishes, one of which will be granted: lower prices or better jobs.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Human Rights Day: Individual rights come with collective responsibility
Friday, December 10th, 2021
People opposed to COVID-19 restrictions… commonly refer to [UDHR] Article 3: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Conspicuously overlooked is Article 29, which… recognizes there will be times like this when reasonable limits on individual freedoms are necessary for the collective good. Protecting the public from a deadly pandemic is certainly important to our global health and to our shared humanity.
Tags: featured, globalization, Health, ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
We Finally Seem Ready to Take on the One Per Cent
Saturday, November 20th, 2021
Starting in the early 1980s and especially in the mid-1990s, social programs were cut and never restored, and no one suffered more than those at the bottom while those at the very upper end saw their wages (and stock options) begin to soar… But things change, sometimes quickly, and sometimes for the better. A minimum tax on corporate wealth was long seen as a pipe dream. Not now. Some 140 countries have just agreed to a minimum global corporate tax of 15 per cent… The pandemic has been a major accelerant.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Countries reach agreement on corporate tax
Saturday, October 9th, 2021
More than 130 countries have agreed on sweeping changes to how big global companies are taxed, including a 15 per cent minimum corporate rate designed to deter multinationals from stashing profits in low-tax countries… The OECD said that the minimum tax would reap some $150 billion (U.S.) for governments… it would end a “race to the bottom” in which countries outbid each other with lower tax rates.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Worried about your charity? Why WE Charity’s practice is atypical
Monday, August 30th, 2021
The WE controversy… offers a number of lessons. There is some urgency to update the regulations and oversight of charities that conduct business activities, particularly those using social enterprise arms rather than doing this work within the charity… Finally, it warns charities to be cautious where their conduct may trigger conflict-of-interest legislation or bring to light their practices under lobbying legislation. Being ethical is a broader concept than being legal…
Tags: globalization, ideology, multiculturalism, participation, philanthropy, youth
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
We broke down the hospitalization risk of going unvaccinated in Ontario. Here’s what the numbers say
Wednesday, August 18th, 2021
Unvaccinated Ontarians are ending up in hospital with COVID-19 nearly 20 times as often as fully vaccinated individuals and in the last week have been about 70 times more likely to end up in intensive care… there are more than six times as many unvaccinated patients currently hospitalized with COVID (68) as fully vaccinated individuals (11)… an unvaccinated Ontarian has been nearly nine times more likely to test positive for COVID than a fully vaccinated individual; they’ve been 19 times more likely to end up in hospital; and at the most serious end, the unvaccinated have gone to the ICU more than 70 times as often as the larger population with both doses.
Tags: featured, globalization, Health, participation, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
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