Archive for the ‘Child & Family Debates’ Category
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Feeding jails while police starve
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
Jun 20 2011
Stephen Harper’s plan to pump billions of dollars into new penitentiaries — while starving Canada’s national police force of the money it needs to do its job — is ludicrous. It’s as if the Prime Minister actually wants to promote crime as a way of filling his new jails. The auditor general’s most recent report confirmed that the RCMP has been giving up many of its investigations into drug gangs, mobsters and organized crime because it doesn’t have the resources to pursue them.
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Low-income, young racking up debt at record pace
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Jun 14 2011
Low-income and young Canadians are racking up debt more quickly than seniors and those with higher incomes, according to… the annual study by the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada… Nearly half of lower income respondents, those with incomes under $35,000, reported their debt increasing, compared to one-third of higher income respondents, the study found… About one-third of seniors are retiring with an average debt of $60,000.
Tags: poverty, standard of living, youth
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Not enough evidence for routine autism screening for autism: Canadian researchers
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
June 13, 2011
Not enough sound evidence exists for routine screening of all preschoolers to determine whether they have autism, researchers said Monday. In a paper published in the online edition of the journal Pediatrics, a team at McMaster University in Hamilton said that screening and diagnostic tools are still being developed and revised, and no therapies have a “curative outcome or well-established efficacy to change the course of the condition.”
Tags: disabilities, Health, mental Health
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Canada, look to America’s truce in the drug war
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
Jun. 09, 2011
Canada’s possession laws are an expensive irrelevancy. In 2009, there were 48,981 incidents of cannabis possession reported by police. While there is no up-to-date estimate on the annual costs of enforcement, a reputable 2002 study put them at $300-million. All this for a “relatively harmless” drug, as the Ontario Court of Appeal has called it. Canada has not even been able to get its act together to make marijuana truly available for medicinal use, according to an Ontario judge who has ordered Ottawa to fix the medical-marijuana law.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, ideology, rights
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Crime and punishment: Inside the Tories’ plan to overhaul the justice system
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
May 21, 2011
The Conservative government’s omnibus crime legislation, due ‘‘within 100 days,’’ will mark a watershed moment in Canadian legal history… The bill is sweeping in scale and scope: It is expected to usher new mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.. It will expand police powers online without court orders, reintroduce controversial aspects of the Anti-Terrorism Act that expired in 2007, end house arrest for serious crimes, and impact young offenders and their privacy.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology
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Unhealthy neighbourhoods play big role in obesity, diabetes epidemic
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
May. 17, 2011
There is a worldwide epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Canada’s two million cases of diabetes are expected to double over the next decade, according to a 2008 report from the Canadian Diabetes Association. Three times as many young teenagers are overweight now as there were 25 years ago… People who live in the northern, unwalkable fringes of low-income Toronto… will live about 20 fewer years than those in downtown, vibrant neighbourhoods
Tags: Health, housing, immigration, participation, standard of living
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Harm reduction on trial
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
May 11 2011
Today… Federal government lawyers will be in the court to present their case to shut down Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site for people who inject drugs…. To Ontario residents, there is no doubt such sites do improve health while reducing the spread of disease in the community and improving public order in the neighbourhood. To citizens who say the money should be invested in treatment facilities instead of supervised injection services — we need both. Each is along the continuum of health-care responses to injection drug use.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, Health, ideology, rights
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The trouble with the TFSA
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
Apr 30 2011
While corporate tax cuts have been fiercely attacked in recent weeks as giveaways to big business, the Conservatives have managed to avoid controversy over another costly election promise that seems poised to deliver an even bigger windfall to the Bay Street crowd. The promise involves Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSA)… the program does little for moderate earners, and is really about eliminating taxes on capital gains and other income from capital – something the financial community has long lobbied for but been unable to achieve.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Government-sanctioned online gambling: short-sighted and morally bankrupt
Monday, April 25th, 2011
Apr. 21, 2011
There are few public policies that are more short-sighted, misguided and morally bankrupt. Gambling is unhealthy – financially, socially and, sometimes, physically… All gambling is tends to be anti-social activity – a destroyer of families and relationships – and never more so than when done online… Canada has essentially taken a “we can’t do anything about it” attitude, even though one of the biggest online gambling hubs in the world is located in Kahnawake, a native reserve just outside Montreal.
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Why do freedom fighters yearn for locks and keys?
Monday, April 11th, 2011
Apr 11 2011
…isn’t [it] a bit simplistic to divide society into “good folk” and “bad folk” and then try to consign the baddies to perdition for ever more?… the chance to get out on parole is essential… First, prisoners who can’t earn their way out early have nothing to gain by showing respect for the prison system, and lack of respect puts guards’ safety in jeopardy. Second, prisoners who serve full sentences don’t report to parole officers. I have watched parole officers in action. They are often able to keep ex-cons on the straight and narrow out there in the real world, and that is what we want, isn’t it?
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, rights
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