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Health care is the Ontario government’s job one. Shouldn’t they be better at it?
Thursday, December 7th, 2023
… this year’s reports on the health-care system are a reminder that spending less is not the same thing as spending well and that, in some cases at least, you need to spend more public money to fix important policy problems. Ontario may be training a record number of nurses, but if we want them to stay in this province, we’ll likely need to pay them more than we currently do — not least because Ontario currently pays nurses less than does any other province… for all the billions of dollars that the government taxes and spends to keep the system running
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Are the Tories actually underspending? Here’s what the numbers say
Saturday, August 5th, 2023
… the Ontario government is already dealing with criticism on multiple fronts from political constituencies with demands that are hardly unreasonable: things like keeping hospital ERs open or adequately funding forest-fire suppression in the worst fire season in Canada’s recorded history or keeping the province’s largest city from falling into a budgetary black hole. These aren’t extravagances — they’re the normal things people expect from government.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Why Ontario is in court (again) fighting to save Bill 124
Monday, June 26th, 2023
While managing the government’s spending is obviously an important function of government, Koehnen said in his decision that it can’t be used as an excuse to ride roughshod over the guarantees in the Charter: “While it might be appropriate to infringe on a Charter right when faced with a serious fiscal challenge, it is not appropriate to do so as part of the day-to-day management of government affairs.”
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Federal health minister dings Ontario for private billing
Saturday, March 11th, 2023
Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced Friday that he will be reducing the Canada Health Transfer to eight provinces, including Ontario, for breaches of federal policy regarding billing patients for medically necessary costs… Further, Duclos signalled that Friday’s announcement will not be the end of the measures the federal government is considering to reinforce the public aspect of Canada’s health-care system.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Debates, Health Delivery System | No Comments »
The ‘care economy’ is growing the government, whether conservatives like it or not
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022
The government isn’t just getting bigger. It’s getting bigger specifically in the areas where costs are most likely to grow over the long-term… National child care, having been implemented, stands a fair chance of being permanent now. And COVID-19 has spurred even penny-pinching provinces like Ontario to commit to substantial health-care capacity expansions.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
What do we want our health-care system to do, and how much are we willing to pay?
Wednesday, January 12th, 2022
In late 2019, the Ontario Hospital Association published a report touting the sector’s history of efficiency while warning that the efficiencies had come at a cost. It noted that, if Ontario funded its hospital system just to the level of the Canadian average, that would cost another $4 billion annually. But almost all Canadian provinces have relatively few beds per capita compared with other wealthy countries…
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, pharmaceutical, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Another week, another courtroom, another defeat for Doug Ford on climate change
Tuesday, November 17th, 2020
Several young people (ranging in age from 12 to 24) argued that the decision to pursue less stringent GHG reductions amounts to a violation of their Charter rights. They asked the court to order the government to adopt a “science-based” target and want a declaration that a stable climate is part of our Charter rights… It’s true that courts have been willing to make decisions with broad impacts before, but this would be something nearly revolutionary.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, rights, standard of living, youth
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Five things you should know about Ontario’s 2020 budget
Friday, November 6th, 2020
Here are five key items from the 2020-21 budget. 1. Record spending makes for a record deficit — but not record interest payments… 2. Health-care spending is, unsurprisingly, growing during the pandemic… 3. Lots of help for small businesses… 4. Lean years for schools coming(?)… 5. The cries for Ottawa’s money will never stop… As it stands, federal transfers to Ontario in this fiscal year were $33.4 billion, up $8 billion from last year.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Basic income would be the biggest reordering of public finance in a generation
Wednesday, September 16th, 2020
… the question of how it would be paid for (the UBI Works page on suggested tax increases to fund a UBI is eye-opening, in multiple senses of the phrase). One point that is worth dwelling on early in the discussion is what a UBI would mean for a pretty fundamental element of Canadian politics: the balance between federal and provincial spending.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
There’s no such thing as a non-partisan recovery plan. Deal with it
Saturday, May 16th, 2020
… it’s worth being honest about COVID-19 recovery efforts: Trudeau’s plans are going to be different from Ford’s because they believe very different things… If you were a small-government conservative before the pandemic, Trudeau’s response will upset you; if you were a socialist before Ontario’s first coronavirus case, I regret to inform you that Doug Ford will not be leading the people in glorious revolution… conservative premiers will have enormous power to shape and constrain the federal response.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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