Archive for the ‘Child & Family Debates’ Category
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Caledon Submission… on National Finance [Tax Credits]
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Dec. 12, 2011
We were pleased to see recognition of caregiver needs in Bill C-13. But we do not support the design of the new measure, which will deny assistance to lower-income families and provide tax assistance to non-poor families, including the well-off. Similarly, the Children’s Arts Tax Credit, while important acknowledgement of the value of arts and cultural activities, will do nothing for lower-income families but will help the rest, including the relatively well-off. We also raise general concerns regarding tax expenditures as a means of financing social needs.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Ontario closer than ever to legalization of marijuana
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Apr 18, 2011
… the Ontario Superior Court struck down two key parts of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that prohibit the possession and production of pot. The court declared the rules that govern medical marijuana access and the prohibitions laid out in sections 4 and 7 of the Act “constitutionally invalid and of no force and effect” on Monday, effectively paving the way for legalization.
Tags: crime prevention, Health, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 3 Comments »
The best defence against bullying
Friday, November 18th, 2011
Nov. 18, 2011
… research shows that when students spoke up, or jumped in physically, half of the incidents ended abruptly. Telling an adult is the ideal response – the more students who come forward, the more likely school officials will react. But in the higher grades… teenagers need specific skills: how to rally their friends to face down the bully or reach out to the victim… victims of bullying reported that bystanders were the most helpful when they comforted them after the fact, helped them get away from the situation, or gave them advice. What makes the difference may be numbers…
Tags: mental Health, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 5 Comments »
Mandatory reading on mandatory minimum sentences
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
Nov. 15, 2011
In Canada, the federal prison population rose by 1,000 to 14,500, in just 18 months, partly as a result of new mandatory minimums, a federal report found in August. At an average cost of $110,000 a year per inmate, the benefits would be questionable at any time – all the more so when economies nearly everywhere are at risk… the Canadian government… seems intent on following the failed U.S. model, even as that country beats a retreat.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
CASW Asking for Balance on Crime and Punishment Legislation
Monday, November 7th, 2011
November 7, 2011
“Social workers are respecfully appealing to Prime Minister Harper to lift the 100 day self-imposed timetable for passing C-10, retract the bill, and to reintroduce its component parts next session so that each can be debated on their own merits”… “Victims justly require protection, support and justice; let us honour them by not creating a system that, as an unintended consequence, creates more victims that it supports.”
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, participation
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Tough-on-crime bill toughest on taxpayers
Sunday, November 6th, 2011
Nov. 4, 2011
Even if Canada never reaches the startling levels of U.S. incarceration (with less than 5% of the global population, it is home to 25% of the world’s prisoners), for every new prisoner created by the Harper government’s toughon-crime bill, and for every year the new laws add to a prisoner’s sentence, there will be impacts to not just the cost of prisons and courts, but even more lingering strains on provincial health and social program budgets.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
There is no crime epidemic
Friday, November 4th, 2011
Nov. 04, 2011
A recent thorough study of homicides by Tina Hotton Mahony of Statistics Canada lays all the facts before Canadians. It’s too bad – indeed, it’s a tragedy – that these sorts of facts have no influence on the Harper government’s expensive and counterproductive, politically motivated “tough on crime” agenda… this is the government that abolished the long-form census, the method every statistician here and abroad said would produce the most accurate facts. In that file, as in criminal justice and others, it’s a government that either looks simple facts in the face and denies them, or willfully disregards them.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Harper’s crime bill needs cost-effective prevention
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Oct. 24, 2011
Parliament should add a Crime Reduction Board to the government’s omnibus crime bill… Public Safety Canada provides a website with examples of effective precrime prevention programs that have stopped crime before citizens became victims, but these are not yet being used from coast to coast… If the federal government matched every additional dollar for prisons with another dollar for prevention and victim rights, Canada would become one of the safest countries in the world – and cost-effectively!
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Families need ‘New Deal’
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
October 19, 2011
The New Deal includes extending benefits for new parents to 18 months from 12 for all single and dual earner households, including self-employed and unemployed parents, and a minimum benefit should be provided that would eliminate poverty for families with children under 18 months… The New Deal proposes providing $10-per-day child care and promotes flex-time to help employees combine work and family, making them more productive while at work. Incentives should be available to employers to limit work weeks to 35 hours.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
The Tories’ tough-on-crime agenda is intellectually bankrupt
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
Oct 19, 2011
The Canadian government’s web site points visitors to several Justice Department studies on mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. None strongly support the idea that Bill C-10 will reduce drug use or improve public safety. “The evidence points the other way… the bill represents… a complete divorce between policy-making that affects millions of people, and real-life research and experiences…
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
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