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“A Tale of Two Reports” [Poverty in Ontario]
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
March 12, 2012
Poverty does not just happen. There are things that we do in society that create poverty and inequality. And there are things we can do to reduce poverty and inequality. Therefore, to respect the letter and the spirit of Ontario’s landmark poverty reduction act, passed with unanimous support from all parties in the legislature, we call for these changes to the 2012 Ontario Budget: raise social assistance rates to at least cover the rise in the cost of living; immediately implement the full Ontario Child Benefit; – do not make structural changes to social assistance programs before hearing the recommendations from the Social Assistance Review Commissioners.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
Calling a cut an ‘increase’
Friday, April 6th, 2012
April 5, 2012
Per student funding has in fact been in decline since the financial crisis hit in 2008-09. The budget does nothing to help. By 2014-15, OCUFA projects that public operating funding for universities will drop by 16 per cent. This is a huge loss in revenue that, if left unfilled, will damage the quality of higher education in Ontario. History tells us that institutions will attempt to fill the gap with higher tuition fees, continuing the unsustainable shift of costs onto students.
Tags: budget, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Drummond Commission report: countering cutbacks in Ontario
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Feb. 17, 2012
In the wake of the Drummond report on reforming Ontario’s public services—which includes 362 recommended reforms to balance the books by 2018—CCPA Research Associates share their analyses… [articles by Erin Weir, Karen Foster, and Jimm Stanford].
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
OCUFA analysis of the Drummond Report: all cuts, no substance
Friday, February 24th, 2012
Feb. 23, 2012
On the commission’s own assumptions and proposals – 1.7 per cent annual enrolment growth, 1.9 per cent annual inflation, and 1.5 per cent annual increases in post-secondary funding – per student funding will decline by 12 per cent between now and 2017-18… inflation-adjusted provincial funding per college student could fall by $790, and per undergraduate student could decline by almost $940. For graduate students, the reduction could be $2,280.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
OCUFA to Drummond: You can’t drive Ontario forward on a half-empty tank
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Feb. 16, 2012
Drummond’s chief recommendation is that government funding of universities and colleges be limited to 1.5 per cent per year… this is an effective cut to higher education funding that does not keep pace with enrolment or inflation. Ontario’s universities already receive 25 per cent less per-student funding than they did in 1990; Drummond’s recommendations will make this under-funding even worse.
Tags: budget, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Not a pension crisis, but reform opportunity
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
February 2, 2012
Lowering the threshold at which the OAS is taxed back would have the same effect on the bottom line as pushing back the age of eligibility, but it would still allow people to retire without fearing poverty at 65. Rather than legislate a solution during the current session of Parliament, the government should publish a white paper that lays out the problem that needs to be solved along with a range of possible solutions… An equitable solution should leave no aggrieved interests for opportunistic politicians to champion.
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Higher education brings security, higher wages, especially for men
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
Dec. 14, 2011
The relative earnings of those with a university education in Canada and Ontario are higher than the OECD average, but the degree of difference varies by age and gender… In Ontario, the apparent value of a university education is much greater for men than for women: compared to their male counterparts with high school or non-post-secondary qualifications, men with higher education earn 150 per cent more, while women have a 68 per cent earnings edge. And women with higher education still earn only 61 per cent of what men with a comparable education make.
Tags: economy, globalization, standard of living, women
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Poor mental health harming productivity, says OECD
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
Dec. 13, 2011
The OECD’s report, entitled Sick on the Job? Myths and Realities about Mental Health at Work found that most people with a mental disorder are in work, with employment rates of between 55 per cent and 70 per cent – about 10 to 15 per cen-tage points lower than for people without a disorder. But people with mental illness are two to three times as likely to be unemployed as people with no mental health problems. This gap represents an economic major loss… health systems in most countries were narrowly focused on treating people with severe disorders such as schizophrenia, who account for only a quarter of all sufferers.
Tags: disabilities, economy, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ontario’s PSE record is world class
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
Dec. 7, 2011
Ontario’s attainment rate for higher education has risen from 44 per cent in 1999 to a 56 per cent in 2009… Ontario’s – and Canada’s – higher attainment rates are mostly owing to the number of people who have completed college… But Ontario’s 28 per cent university attainment is also higher than the OECD’s 21 per cent average… the rate at which first-time university students are graduating is four percentage points higher in Ontario than the OECD. The OECD graduation rate for those with advanced research degrees (typically doctorates), however, is 1.5 per cent, compared to 1.2 per cent in Ontario.
Tags: globalization, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
Women still owed wage parity
Monday, December 5th, 2011
Dec. 5, 2011
Sure, women have seen advances… Statistics Canada reported last year that between 1997 and 2007, the proportion of women matching or exceeding their husbands’ earnings climbed to 42% from 37%. But crunch the numbers differently, and the figures tell a much different story. In 2007, Canadian women brought home an average of $43,000; men earned $60,300. Put another way: women earned an average of 71.4% of men.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Equality Debates | 2 Comments »
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