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faith to end poverty campaign
Friday, August 26th, 2011
August 17, 2011
On June 9, 2011, ISARC launched the Faith to End Poverty Campaign to ensure poverty issues such as food, housing, and employment remain relevant throughout the provincial election. It is time for governments to make the elimination of poverty a priority through jobs and training strategies, financing for affordable housing, child care and income security, especially when more and more of our labour force is part time, temporary, and contract jobs.
Tags: disabilities, homelessness, housing, mental Health, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
The Decline of Smoking in Canada
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Jul 29, 2011
The latest Statistics Canada figures show smoking rates are fairly stable. In 2010, 20.8 per cent of Canadians aged 12 and over — about six million people — were smokers. Five years ago, there were 5.9 million smokers or 22 per cent of the population. In 2003, 23 per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older, smoked… In 2001, 73 per cent of youth said they never smoked cigarettes. In 2005, the percentage rose to 82 per cent. This finding is key because most smokers start before age 18, and research shows that it is rare for adults to take up smoking.
Tags: Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Harvard study links income inequality to plummeting unionization
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
August 10, 2011
From 1973 to 2007, wage inequality in the U.S. private sector increased by more than 40 per cent among men, and by about 50 per cent among women. At the same time, union membership plunged… “Our study underscores the role of unions as an equalizing force in the labor market… In the early 1970s, unions were important for delivering middle-class incomes to working-class families, and they enlivened politics by speaking out against inequality… These days, there just aren’t big institutional actors who are making the case for greater economic equality in America.”
Tags: ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
National Commission on Community Health and Social Services #1
Sunday, August 7th, 2011
July 26, 2011
The Canada Council on Social Development is exploring a new initiative, a National Commission on Community Health and Social Services, and we are reaching out to request your advice on this special project. We encourage you to visit our website to review our proposal and submit your suggestions, ideas, and consider participating with us. On the site, you will find: the purpose and reasoning for a Commission; how the Commission will be organised; what can be achieved; and how you can become involved.
Tags: child care, disabilities, Health, homelessness, mental Health, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Faith To End Poverty Campaign (2011 Provincial Election)
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
July 4, 2011
ISARC launched the Faith To End Poverty campaign to provide opportunities for Ontarians to advocate for poverty elimination in the upcoming provincial election. Over the next month, ISARC will be preparing lectionary materials for clergy, holding local and provincial vigils, assisting local faith groups to hold all candidate meetings, and preparing short videos for adult education discussion in local congregations and social justice groups… over a million Ontarians are hungry and/or using food banks…
Tags: budget, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Aboriginal Canadians get a fuller share of rights
Monday, June 20th, 2011
Jun. 19, 2011
… practices like sexual harassment in the workplace; denial of an apartment because of someone’s background; or dismissal from a job because of a family feud. Previously, aboriginal Canadians could not use the complaint mechanism in the Act to appeal to the Canadian Human Rights Commission if they faced this kind of unacceptable discrimination. Now, they can… The most obvious new challenge that the extension of the Human Rights Act will allow – over access to band offices and other on-reserve facilities for people with physical disabilities – might also be the most visible and costly one.
Tags: Indigenous, rights
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Moving to a Poverty Free Ontario
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
07 Jun 2011
The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) plans to launch an initiative to build cross-community support for a Poverty Free Ontario by the end of this decade. Social planning councils have a long history since the 1930s of advocating for low income people, whether welfare recipients or working poor. In recent years, the SPNO and its organizational members have assumed a lead role in urging the Ontario Government to adopt a poverty reduction strategy for Ontario.
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Social councils fighting to eradicate poverty
Monday, May 30th, 2011
May 19, 2011
… the poverty line for an average single adult per year is $18,582 a year (after taxes) while the average person on Ontario Works(OW) makes about $7,352 a year… the Government should raise the income that people on OW makes but they won’t because of a dogma or stigma that those who need the system are “begging for handouts” and/or don’t wish to work. “We have to stop using demeaning language and stop referring to Social Assistance as a social and economical ghetto or broken system,” said Novick. “It’s not a broken system, it’s a degraded system.”
Tags: ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
One in four Canadians have depended on social services: poll
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
May 25, 2011
Regardless of their personal feelings on why homeless people end up in that situation, an overwhelming majority of Canadians — 93% — believe nobody in the country should be homeless and housing access should be a fundamental right, according to 86% of the poll respondents. Almost all those polled said the homeless population “deserve a sense of dignity.”… Mental illness was also an area of focus in the survey, with it being cited as a suspected contributing cause of homelessness by 40 per cent of the respondents.
Tags: disabilities, homelessness, housing, mental Health, poverty
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Canada among most peaceful nations in the world: report
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
May 25, 2011
The Institute for Economics and Peace… says in its 2011 Global Peace Index that Canada is the eighth most peaceful country in the world in which to live… holding Canada from climbing higher on the index was an increase in the likelihood of violent protests, a reflection of the demonstrations in Toronto during last year’s G20 meetings…The index uses 23 quantitative and qualitative measures, such as military spending as a percentage of GDP, level of violent crime, likelihood of violent demonstrations, deaths from conflict and relations with neighbouring countries…
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
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