Ford government is still underfunding education despite budget increase, school boards say
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
Spending $30.3 billion on per-pupil funding in 2025-26 doesn’t make up for years funding didn’t keep up with inflation, says the boards’ association… when the Ford government took power in 2018, per-pupil funding was $12,282, and in the upcoming school year will be $14,560 — but when adjusted to 2018 dollars, funding has actually dropped, leaving a $693-million gap for the province’s 31 English public boards alone.
Tags: budget, Education, featured, jurisdiction, participation
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Ontario government aims to fast-track cancer drugs in new pilot project
Sunday, May 18th, 2025
During the election, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged that, if elected, his government would “significantly reduce wait times for life-saving medications… Canadian patients wait too long for public access to medicines following Health Canada approval, putting us behind other G7 countries” and promised to cut red tape without compromising safety. The Ontario pilot will include “select high priority cancer drugs” that are approved and part of Project Orbis, an international effort to co-ordinate efforts between countries to get medications approved and fast-tracked out to patients.
Tags: Health
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Ontario aims to get 300,000 patients off doctor wait-list with new clinics
Friday, April 11th, 2025
… the government plans to establish up to 80 new or expanded clinics — featuring teams of doctors, nurse practitioners and other health-care providers — based on postal codes with the biggest need in communities such as Toronto, Durham and Halton regions, Ottawa, and up north in Nipissing and Sudbury… Using postal codes will allow the government to “put some investments in teams in those areas to be able to have that big impact as quickly as possible, recognizing there is need everywhere,”
Tags: featured, Health, jurisdiction, participation
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Canada unveils new restrictions on work permits for international students, spouses
Monday, January 22nd, 2024
Starting on Sept. 1, the federal government will stop issuing postgraduate work permits to international students who graduate from programs provided under so-called Public College-Private Partnerships, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said… “I’m not the minister of post-secondary education underfunding. I’m the minister of immigration. Clearly in the last decade or so or even longer, post-secondary institutions in Canada have been underfunded by provinces.”
Tags: economy, featured, immigration, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Hospitals plagued by staff shortages and ER closures under Ford government, auditor general finds
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
Plagued by shortages of doctors and nurses and persistent emergency room closures, Ontario lacks a province-wide strategy to fix the problems, the watchdog agency said in a wide-ranging audit of government performance… The worsening staff shortages have been fuelled by the Ford government’s Bill 124, which limited nurses and many other public sector workers to maximum annual pay hikes of one per cent, the auditor found.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
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Ontario is first province to make mental health lessons mandatory in Grade 10
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023
Now, the government will be providing consistent, required learning materials on mental health in Grades 7 and 8, including videos and activities about how to handle and recognize stress. In Grade 10, students — as part of the mandatory career studies — will be taught the signs of anxiety and being overwhelmed, and where to go for help.
Tags: budget, mental Health, participation, youth
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Supporters fight to keep midwifery program in northern Ontario
Monday, April 26th, 2021
… approximately 27 per cent of families who choose midwifery care are unable to access it — and far more so in the north… in northern Ontario, some 60 per cent of midwives are Laurentian graduates, and more than 90 per cent of Francophone midwives practising in places such as Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Hearst and Attawapiskat First Nation… the program was in the black this year and that a petition to keep it going has more than 20,000 signatures.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, standard of living, women
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Ontario pledges $106.4M for university, college COVID-19 costs
Saturday, March 20th, 2021
The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) estimates its 21 members have spent or lost $1 billion during the pandemic, but found $500 million in one-time savings. It has said there is “an urgent need for sector-wide cost recovery.” … “while this targeted and time-limited investment will help address some urgent and immediate costs, it does not address the significant long-term financial needs of the sector.”
Tags: budget, ideology
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Province to scrap controversial teacher hiring rule
Thursday, October 15th, 2020
The Ontario government is going to… scrap a controversial hiring rule that gives preference to supply teachers with the most seniority… After years of complaints from boards and principals about Regulation 274 — which essentially forces them to hire from among a small group of teachers who have spent the most time on the supply list… Education Minister Stephen Lecce… prefers that schools hire the best fit for the job.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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School pandemic plans don’t work for working parents, province told
Thursday, July 9th, 2020
Other jurisdictions are thinking outside the box so students aren’t simply divvied into groups and told to attend classes half-days or every other day — and Ontario should be too… The “hybrid” model of in-class and online learning “leaves working parents with young children, single-parent households and low-income families in the precarious position of having to choose between educating their children and their own employment,”
Tags: child care, economy, featured, Health, jurisdiction, participation
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