Why dentists are not signing up for the Canadian Dental Care Plan
It is time organized dentistry take their professional responsibility seriously, and stop swaying dentists away from the CDCP… There is a long history of organized dentistry opposing public dental care—much like how physicians opposed universal healthcare when it was first rolled out. Since organized dentistry has a history of opposing public delivery of dental care, they are more likely to negotiate in good faith out of concern of this public delivery model being scaled up if private dentists do not sign up for the program.
Child & Family
Is the cap on for-profit centres hampering growth of $10-a-day child care in Ontario?
In the deal with the federal government, Ontario committed… to maintaining a ratio in the $10-a-day system of 70 per cent non-profit spaces and 30 per cent for-profit spaces… while there have been about 51,000 new spaces since 2019 for the kids five and under… only 25,500 of those are within the $10-a-day system… Ontario needs to address its own funding formula and workforce issues before seeking to expand for-profit daycares.
Ontario expanding jails by several hundred beds to deal with overflowing institutions
As of September 30, 2023, there was an average of 8,889 people in provincial jails, well over the 7,848-person capacity. Overall, the jails were operating at 113 per cent capacity at that time. Premier Doug Ford pledged in March to build more jails to deal with an influx of inmates, the vast majority of whom are innocent and awaiting trial. Ontario will reopen two intermittent detention centres inside Toronto and London jails that had been closed in order to add up to 430 beds by 2026.
Education
Nigmendra Narain speaks truth about Ontario’s manufactured university crisis
ON funding $6000 below national average… this scarcity of university funding… has been completely manufactured by a provincial government bent on ‘saving tax-payer dollars’ by downloading costs onto individuals while encouraging public-private partnerships… Ontario’s ratio is currently 34 students : 1 professor. Contrast that with the rest of Canada averaging 23 students : 1 faculty.
Province urged to take time to rethink flawed post-secondary education bill
Bill 166 is being touted as a potential law to improve transparency and student mental health, and to combat racism and hate on the province’s post-secondary campuses… The provincial government is using a manufactured crisis as an excuse for increased ill-informed ministerial interference… What we do need is a real solution to the real crisis created by government through more than a decade of funding cuts and squeezes.
Employment
Ford’s zealous desire to privatize alcohol sales will be costly for Ontario taxpayers
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO)… annual profit — $2.5 billion in 2023 — goes into the public treasury, where it pays for things like health care and education… it’s doubtful that Ontarians would want to pay higher taxes so that more profits from alcohol sales could go to highly-profitable grocery store chains… Once all the LCBO’s lost revenue is factored in, the full cost to the public treasury of this privatization will likely be… close to a billion dollars.
The IMF says Ottawa should seek additional revenue sources to reduce its reliance on deficit financing. It suggests raising the federal portion of the GST, as this space earlier advocated in also calling for a higher OAS eligibility age of 67… removing interprovincial trade barriers would boost the Canadian economy by about $80 billion a year… The IMF urges Canada to resume provision of social housing, a field Ottawa abandoned in the 1990s with disastrous consequences.
Equality
Most academic economists support a higher inclusion rate, partly because it levels the playing field between different types of capital income. But the best motivation is $20 billion in revenue it will raise over five years, to support modest new programs announced in this budget. This will help fund school lunches, affordable housing initiatives, dental care and disability benefits — while still respecting Freeland’s fiscal “guardrails.”
Pierre Poilievre’s vision for Canada: Heaven for the very rich and squat for everyone else
… the real redistribution in recent years hasn’t been the small bit directed toward benefits for ordinary Canadians but rather the gush of money toward the wealthiest Canadians. In 2021, the richest .01 per cent saw their incomes grow on average by a stunning 30 per cent to $12.5 million a year, while the incomes of 14 million working Canadians actually declined, according to Statistics Canada.
Health
Why dentists are not signing up for the Canadian Dental Care Plan
It is time organized dentistry take their professional responsibility seriously, and stop swaying dentists away from the CDCP… There is a long history of organized dentistry opposing public dental care—much like how physicians opposed universal healthcare when it was first rolled out. Since organized dentistry has a history of opposing public delivery of dental care, they are more likely to negotiate in good faith out of concern of this public delivery model being scaled up if private dentists do not sign up for the program.
Convenient access to alcohol is going to cost us
… while alcohol sales in 2020 put $3.2 billion into Ontario’s coffers, they came at a cost of $7.1 billion. That left the province with an alcohol deficit of $3.9 billion. Health care accounted for $2.3 billion. The rest went to servicing alcohol-related criminal-justice and lost production costs. These figures reflect a deficit capped by the limited number of LCBO and Beer Stores, a limit that will soon cease to exist.
Inclusion
With disability benefits, governments cannot get lost in complexity
The purpose of the CDB is to protect people with disabilities from poverty. The application process should strive to make it easy to identify the people who need this protection… Developing this new benefit will no doubt raise difficult questions about definitions of disability, jurisdiction, and how different programs interact with each other… But they are not impossible. They are not an excuse for doing nothing.
Here’s how Ontarians on ODSP are trying to make ends meet
… the low social-assistance rates in Ontario… are forcing recipients to earn money however they can. Living in what disability activists frequently refer to as “legislated poverty,” these recipients often drain their savings, borrow money from friends and family, or even consider taking their own lives… Programs like the recently unveiled Canada Disability Benefit, or even the Ontario government’s decision to index ODSP to inflation, not only don’t keep pace with the past few years of inflation — they barely address decades of stagnant earnings.
Social Security
Basic Income for a New Model of Canadian Social Democracy
Basic income is a paradigm-shifting idea on how to ensure economic security for everyone… Now is the time for the democratic left in Canada to develop a workable and comprehensive version of basic income as a key policy instrument, and not a sideline consideration. Canadian social democrats should incorporate the principle of guaranteed, unconditional and universal economic security as a fundamental program for its vision a better society.
Warning signs: Poverty in 2022
Pandemic-related modifications to EI, the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit and the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, all ended during 2022… Recent investments, such as the Canada Disability Benefit, may help when the money finally gets to those in need some time in 2025, but the size and reach of the benefit is too low to have a significant impact on poverty rates.
Governance
After slashing government funding to public services starving them into crisis just to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy and their corporations, they then present privatization as the solution to a problem they created. The only thing deregulation and privatization does is create more profit-making opportunities…
Small tax cuts to the general population have been used as a cover for massive tax cuts to the wealthy and their corporations. Reversing tax cuts is not raising taxes, it is restoring revenue to rebuild our once civil society.
Doug Ford has bungled affordable housing and now Ottawa is rubbing his nose in it
The federal government now says it will send funding directly to municipalities, cutting Ontario out of the equation entirely… Why can the two levels of government come together to build subsidized factories, but not subsidized housing? … Ultimately, the friction over funding may have less to do with personalities than priorities. In Ford’s Ontario, unaffordable factories count for more than affordable housing.
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