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On mental health, words come easily. Action less so
Sunday, March 8th, 2020
It’s been almost exactly 10 years… since a select committee report on mental health titled “Navigating the Journey to Wellness: The Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Plan for Ontarians” was issued… Chief among the committee’s eventual recommendations… was creation of Mental Health and Addictions Ontario, an umbrella organization to ensure that a single body was responsible for designing, managing and co-ordinating the system, as well as a “core basket of services in all regions” and “access to a system of navigators.”
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ottawa must tackle the tragic overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prisons
Wednesday, January 29th, 2020
Every conceivable measure we have to judge how a population is doing shows Canada is failing Indigenous peoples: child welfare, poverty, addictions and mental health, housing and clean water, education and employment, and incarceration… Indigenous inmates are disproportionately placed in maximum security and have been held longer in solitary confinement. They serve a higher proportion of their sentence behind bars before being granted parole, and are poorly prepared for their release back into the community.
Tags: corrections, Indigenous, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Government must step in to fix the gig economy
Wednesday, January 8th, 2020
The nature of work is changing. But that shouldn’t mean that jobs, particularly those for low-paid workers, just get worse and worse. Ontario needs to tackle the widening gaps in worker protections. If it doesn’t, companies in the gig economy and traditional sectors alike will continue to exploit loopholes — and their workers. A business model that relies on the exploitation of others is a terrible step backwards. It can’t be the way of the future.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
The Ford government should invest in Ontario’s outmoded courts
Saturday, January 4th, 2020
… the failure to modernize court proceedings actually costs taxpayers money by preventing the government from “realizing potential cost savings.” … A fair court system is a pillar of democracy. But right now, Ontario’s auditor general cannot make head nor tails of how it operates. How, then, can Downey expect Ontarians to trust it — or him?
Tags: budget, crime prevention, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Only the Ford government could double autism funding and still not fix anything
Thursday, December 19th, 2019
If they had simply doubled the funding and made a few administrative tweaks to the existing program they could have had a real win on their hands, not to mention actually providing children with the care they desperately need.
But Ford… spread the existing money more thinly through childhood budgets, and made things far worse.
Tags: budget, disabilities, mental Health, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Toronto should move to a ranked ballot
Tuesday, December 10th, 2019
Council recently voted 14-11 to direct city staff to start the process of moving toward a ranked ballot for the 2022 municipal election… No one likes how our system encourages negative campaigns, focuses on wedge issues and personal attacks, and gives incumbents at the municipal level where there are no political parties such an unfair advantage. Or that councillors can be elected with so little support from the electorate.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
A better way to keep kids safe
Monday, November 25th, 2019
Now a new pilot program run by the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto called “Journey to Zero” will focus on early intervention in an effort to keep children in their own homes and out of care… “We shouldn’t design a system where we are raising children”… The solution? Putting much more emphasis on supporting families in need so they, not children’s aid societies, can do the job themselves.
Tags: child care, featured, ideology, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario shouldn’t turn back the clock on naming judges
Wednesday, November 20th, 2019
The effect of that would be to give the attorney general more leeway to use his own discretion in naming judges and JPs. It risks turning back the clock and re-politicizing a system that has been virtually free of partisan considerations for some time. It would be, in other words, a step backwards toward the bad old days when political connections mattered as much (or more) than legal excellence.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
It’s time for a national ban on owning handguns
Sunday, November 17th, 2019
Since the Harper government made it easier in 2012 to amass large stockpiles of guns, the number of privately owned handguns has skyrocketed to close to a million. And police say many of those guns find their way into criminal hands… The notion that municipalities can pass and enforce an effective handgun ban is ridiculous… “This is a national issue.”
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Video visits with doctors are a smart idea
Friday, November 15th, 2019
There are three much bigger issues the government needs to tackle to reduce the average wait time to be admitted to hospital from an emergency department. It now tops a sickening 16 hours. Those are a lack of nursing home and long-term health care beds and a shortage of home-care services. And they won’t be solved by the $3 million the province plans to spend on video visits and other digital innovations.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
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