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Five Eyes allies urged to lessen dependence on China
Thursday, May 21st, 2020
Canada depends on China for 367 categories of goods, such as pharmaceuticals and food additives, of which 83 are used to supply critical national infrastructure, including rare-earth minerals, industrial products and electronics… as China has become more authoritarian under President Xi Jinping, it has increasingly shown a willingness to threaten and punish countries that question its actions… Canada must at a minimum diversify its supply chains.
Tags: economy, globalization, Health, ideology
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
CPI retooling could result in big savings for Ottawa, business
Monday, February 13th, 2012
Feb. 13, 2012
Canada’s statistics agency is refining the consumer price index, a key economic yardstick for matching pensions and salaries to the rising cost of living – and the result could mean sizable savings for governments and corporations that hike payments annually to keep pace with inflation.
Tags: budget, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Statscan numbers highlight concerns about aging and the work force
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Feb. 03, 2012
“Since 2006 the share of the working-age population has decreased in most eastern provinces; it has remained the same or increased in Ontario and western provinces,” the Statscan document says… Canada will soon reach, or has already reached, the point where the number of younger people of age to enter the labour force equals the number of Canadians old enough to leave it. Immigration and delayed retirement, however, could ease this looming pressure on the work force.
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Sweeping Conservative crime bill only ‘the beginning’
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Sep. 20, 2011
Bill C-10, tabled in the Commons on Tuesday, combines nine separate bills that the Conservatives failed to enact into law during their minority government years… It will rewrite laws on the production and possession of drugs, on young offenders, parole and house arrest, pardons and anti-terrorism, among others… Opposition critics denounced the measures as retrograde and costly, but… In many cases, the Tories are increasing, or introducing, minimum sentences for offences… No MP relishes being labelled soft on crime.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Health care: Parties set out their approaches
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
Apr. 22, 2011
Health care and the economy are the two issues Canadians consistently say mean the most to them, but they’re not getting that much substantive air time in the campaign. With this primer, The Globe and Mail addresses that. In this special feature, public-health reporter André Picard frames the problems and politics reporter Steven Chase tries to pin down the parties.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Chief statistician asked to rethink census for 2016
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
Feb. 11, 2011
Mr. Smith…has been asked to study how other countries gather information and report with options that could shape the 2016 census. Examples range from a register-based census, where governments dip into their records on their citizens, to surveying a different part of the country every year… if we could make a register[-based] census work in Canada, we could save buckets of money and avoid annoying a whole bunch of Canadians in asking them to fill out forms
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
EU officials decry Canada’s census decision
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
November 23, 2010
The European Union’s leading statisticians are decrying the Canadian government’s decision to use “dormant legal powers” to scrap a mandatory detailed census of Canada this past summer, saying it undermined the independence of Statistics Canada… In its 2010 report, the European Statistical Advisory Board says the independence of every country’s statistical agency should be enshrined in law and cites Canada as an example of what can go wrong if governments are legally allowed to interfere in census-taking.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Let top statistician resolve census issue, former civil servants urge PM
Sunday, September 12th, 2010
Sep. 11, 2010
Mr. Dodge and his fellow letter writers want the Conservatives to change Canadian law so that the chief statistician alone decides the techniques and methodology for census-taking.
Such a change would build a wall of independence around Statistics Canada, considered one of the world’s leading statistical agencies. It would also make it easier for Ottawa to find someone new to lead the now dispirited agency… The Conservatives have adamantly refused to alter course
Tags: ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Canada lags in addressing cost of aging society: budget watchdog
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Friday, Feb. 19, 2010
The Finance Department similarly offered up the demands of managing the economic downturn as a rationale to explain why it has not released the 2007 report on the fiscal implications of an aging population – a problem former Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale called a “demographic time bomb.”…
Speculation about the 2007 report is that the Conservatives failed to release it because it would have contradicted the Harper government’s boast at the time that generous increases in transfers to the provinces had solved a so-called fiscal imbalance between Ottawa and provincial capitals.
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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