Provinces need to own their responsibility for expanding low-fee child care
Wednesday, February 4th, 2026
The most recent data shows eight of ten provinces will miss the federal goal of having 5.9 child care spaces per 10 children. Only two provinces have that level of access: Quebec and P.E.I… The rest of the provinces weren’t even paying half the cost of their child care programs—they coasted on federal investments… In fact, many of the provinces who have been loudly complaining that the CWELCC program is “too expensive” are also the ones who are paying the least for it.
Tags: budget, child care, featured, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
100 highest-paid CEOs now make 248 times more than average workers in record-breaking year
Sunday, January 4th, 2026
“CEO pay is mostly bonuses now, bonuses tied in some form to those corporate profits. When inflation drives profits, it also drives CEO pay through the stratosphere… CEO pay continues to soar without restraints… And tax rates on Canada’s richest are well below where they used to be. Meanwhile food bank demand has hit all-time highs. We need to take action on income and wealth inequality in Canada, and taxation can be the control we need.”
Tags: economy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Platform Crunch: Tax cuts are alive and well in this federal election, but who benefits? (Hint: Look up, way up)
Friday, April 18th, 2025
The richest 40 per cent of Canadians would enjoy three-quarters of those promised savings (for either party), while the lowest-income earners in Canada would, on average, enjoy zero benefit. Not great preparation for a tariff war that would hit low-income families the hardest… The expenditures are so large and these parties are so concerned with having no deficits that they’ll require massive cuts elsewhere to balance the budget. We are yet to see a detailed list of those cuts…
Tags: economy, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Company men: CEO pay in 2023
Thursday, January 9th, 2025
Following two blistering years of all-time high compensation, Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs pocketed $13.2 million, on average, in 2023—the third biggest haul since we’ve been tracking CEO pay. On average, these 100 CEOs were paid 210 times more than the average worker’s wage in 2023—from its high of over 240 times more pay in the previous two years… This report notes several trends and busts key myths about CEO pay and their worth:
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
It’s not too late to fix a government benefit that could lift thousands more Canadians out of poverty
Tuesday, November 26th, 2024
… its very design ensures that [the Canada Disability Benefit] will help far too few people in need. There are two key reasons for its underwhelming impact: unnecessarily restrictive eligibility criteria, and the wildly insufficient size of the benefit… The CRA applies rigid, and often arbitrary criteria, to establish eligibility — especially with respect to mental health conditions and chronic illness… The other critical flaw in the Canada Disability Benefit’s design is the woefully low benefit of only $2,400 per year.
Tags: disabilities, featured, Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
How the public sector is fighting income inequality (and why it’s still not enough)
Wednesday, February 28th, 2024
The public sector’s impact on gender pay equity is very concentrated among middle- to middle-low income earners who were making around $20 an hour in 2023. At that income level, women in the public sector make roughly the same as men in both the public and private sectors, achieve pay equity. It’s a rare phenomenon… Also, the gender pay gap widens in both sectors at higher-income levels.
Tags: economy, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
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.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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.
Tags: economy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Not done yet: $10-a-day child care requires addressing Canada’s child care deserts
Monday, May 22nd, 2023
… child care deserts are a feature of child care provision all across Canada. This reality, which represents the dysfunctional child care market that has developed over time as Canada has, until now, lacked unifying early learning and child care policy and funding… purposeful and rational expansion of public and non-profit licensed child care is a critical next step to ensure that all Canadian families can access the more affordable fees already in play.
Tags: child care, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
No Strings Attached: Canada’s health care deal lacks key conditions
Friday, February 17th, 2023
… despite provincial ad campaigns that show destitute doctors and nurses begging for federal funding, the question of who is responsible for the crisis in Canadian health care is not so clear cut. Health care is a provincial jurisdiction and the big provinces are flush with cash. It’s not money stopping them from fixing their systems, it’s political will.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments