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An economic cancer
Sunday, September 19th, 2010
Sept. 18, 2010
… fully one in three cigarettes bought in Canada were contraband as of 2008–up from one in six just two years before… The state’s failure to tackle this problem makes it effectively complicit in the illegal tobacco trade… Effective immediately, it should enforce the law against illegal tobacco products, as well as lower tobacco taxes. In the long term, it should reform the Indian Act to empower aboriginal Canadians to start legitimate businesses instead of resorting to crime.
Tags: crime prevention, economy, Health, Indigenous, poverty
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Can’t give money away [Rent Supplements]
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
Sep 18 2010
There are 142,000 low-income families in Ontario waiting on a list for an apartment they can afford. So one would expect that the government would have no trouble finding people to benefit from $100 a month to help pay the rent. But the province managed to design a rent supplement program that was so cumbersome and restrictive that, three years after its launch, it still hasn’t managed to spend all the $185 million that was earmarked for it. “There just weren’t the applicants,” claims the housing ministry.
Tags: budget, housing, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Improving health care without crushing taxpayers
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Sept. 16, 2010
According to the OECD, Canada already devotes more of its GDP to health care than all but five of 32 industrialized nations– the United States, France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany — all of which allow substantial private expenditure on care. Overall, Canada’s health-care spending is 12% above the OECD average. Yet wait times to see physicians and specialists are “endemic,”… and service rationing is widely used by health bureaucrats to control demand and costs… Without more competition and some way, such as user fees, to make patients more responsible for their health choices, the problems will only get worse.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Good advice on clogged courts
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
Sep 16 2010
Justice Winkler wants to make it mandatory for feuding couples to first attempt mediation or arbitration — with early access to legal advice and financial data — and leave the formalities and complexities of the courts as a last resort… the human heartbreak and financial cost of an unwieldy system that stokes grievances rather than resolving them. Facing prohibitive legal fees, many parents opt to represent themselves in court, with often disastrous consequences for their cases
Tags: standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Saving money on drugs
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
Sep 14 2010
… the buying power of the national plan would force drug makers to reduce prices. Money would also be saved through a rigorous national process for approving new drugs and the reduction in administration costs from collapsing various public and private drug plans into one. But pharmacare would also transfer costs currently paid by the private sector, through employee drug plans, to government. That shift is unlikely to gain favour during a time of high federal and provincial deficits.
Tags: Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
It’s too soon for more payroll tax
Saturday, September 11th, 2010
Sep. 10, 2010
Longer-term fixes to the system are needed on the benefits side, too. A new Mowat Institute finding that fewer unemployed Canadians are receiving benefits than they used to, and that unemployed people in the richest provinces were underserved by the system in the recession… The EI fund should be balanced, yes, but it should also be counter-cyclical – paying out more and collecting less when the economy is weak. Deficit reduction ought to remain a leading priority for the federal government, but EI premium increases get in the way of recovery, and hamper the consumer spending that will also help bring the budget back to balance.
Tags: economy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
All-day JK/SK no ‘frill’
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Sep 08 2010
What the Tories see as an unnecessary expenditure on a “shiny new car” is, in fact, an investment in our future. Other provinces and countries are spending heavily on education; Ontario cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. There is ample evidence that many children are arriving at Grade 1 unprepared after two years of half-day kindergarten. As well as preparing them better for the later grades, full-day kindergarten is also a useful tool for identifying kids with learning disabilities so that they can receive the help they need.
Tags: child care, disabilities, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
It makes good sense to study native land use
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
September 6, 2010
… the federal Indian Affairs department… has now undertaken a study of 65 of Canada’s most successful native communities-about 10 per cent of the total… The study is to be focused on land-use policy, which seems reasonable but has set off alarm bells among some chiefs and others, who are jealous of their powers and wary of conservative thinkers, in and around the Conservative federal government, who have long denounced collective land use on reserves.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Tough times for unions
Monday, September 6th, 2010
Sep 06 2010
… public sector unionization rates are very high — about three in every four workers. But union membership is dwindling in the private sector with the decline in manufacturing jobs, which are traditionally unionized, and the rise of the service sector, which is much harder to organize, as unions have discovered over the years… On the private sector front, the unions have to work harder to convince service sector employees of the merits of union membership.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Funding public schools
Saturday, September 4th, 2010
Sep 04 2010
According to a new report by the parent advocacy group People for Education, Ontario’s public schools now rely on nearly $600 million from private fundraising, user fees, corporate donations and other revenue sources, including vending machines and cafeterias… “What we will not and cannot accept here in Ontario is that kids are out there fundraising for the basics,” acknowledges Premier Dalton McGuinty. In 2005, his government promised a policy to address fundraising and limit the need for it by “ensuring education essentials are provided.” Five years, later, though, we’re still waiting for the policy.
Tags: budget, rights, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
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