Archive for the ‘Child & Family Debates’ Category
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Government’s tough on crime agenda is bad policy
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
January 10, 2011
The main reason for the explosion in prison building is the government’s tough on crime agenda, including the abolition of the two-for-one pre-trial custody credit, which will lead to a significant increase in the number of criminals incarcerated… The Liberals have made this “wasteful” spending central to their message, pointing out that the country can ill-afford such expenditure at a time of declining crime rates. They say that the Harper government is investing in “U.S.-style mega-prisons” at a time when the Americans are retreating from such a model because it doesn’t work.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
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No real ‘choice’ on child care
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
Choice? What choice is there for parents on waiting lists for a government subsidy so they can afford regulated daycare? The waiting list in Toronto alone is nearly 18,000 children long…. Governments from Ottawa on down have refused to accept responsibility. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government killed a promising national child-care program, replacing it with $100-a-month cheques that don’t produce new daycare spots or enable parents to afford existing ones. He, too, said he was giving parents “choice.”
Tags: child care, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Lifting the veil on native youth suicide
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
Jan. 4, 2011
About every 10 days, a young member of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, either in one of the region’s many tiny isolated communities or in the bigger Northern Ontario towns where they often go to attend school or find work, takes his own life… there were a total of 425 confirmed suicides in all age groups through the same 24-year period… The Rangers then approached Staff-Sgt. MacLeod, and last month the 3rd Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, based in CFB Borden near Barrie, Ont., sent six instructors to the suicide prevention course held in Dorset.
Tags: Indigenous, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
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Research may show how poverty shapes the brain
Saturday, January 1st, 2011
Jan. 01, 2011
Studying “orchid children” could also provide new insight into how poverty shapes the brain. Preliminary evidence suggests poor children may be more likely to be highly sensitive to their environments, but scientists don’t yet know why this may be the case. A possible answer is epigenetics, or the way the environment – everything from stress to smoking – can affect the activity of genes… The result can be either an increase or decrease in the production of stress hormones or various neurotransmitters that play a key role in the brain.
Tags: disabilities, mental Health, poverty, youth
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Aging ‘Silver tsunami’ delayed in Canada
Friday, December 31st, 2010
December 31, 2010
the so-called “silver tsunami” is indeed headed our way and could swamp our health-care and pension systems — but we’re unlikely to feel the major impact of Canada’s roughly 10 million boomers for a few years yet… largely because life expectancy has shot up more than a decade during the boomer’s lifetime, to 78 for men and 83 for women. “At 65, you’ve now got about 17 years ahead of you, so people aren’t going to quit work, sit on their rear ends and collect a pension.”
Tags: disabilities, Health, participation, pensions, standard of living
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Poverty: ending the cycle
Sunday, December 19th, 2010
December 18, 2010
Everybody knows that poverty is tough, that it is often at the root of lack of education, drug abuse, even violent crime. But everybody doesn’t know why. Peeling back the layers of poverty has been a career’s work for psychologist Lisa Serbin and her colleagues, the drivers behind Concordia University’s 34-year Longitudinal Risk Project… “They’re without proper housing and quality of food, and there is an effect on nutrition and on brain development.”… “Parental support of children is so important for positive outcomes, as is social support of parents.”
Tags: ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
The 3Rs Of Theo-Cons: Religious, Right, And Rude
Saturday, December 18th, 2010
December 13th 2010
Liberals are not the only ones in their cross-hairs. They blast away at anyone they disagree with: proponents of prison reform don’t care about victims of crime; opponents of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan don’t care about our troops; anyone who doesn’t share their own, rather narrow set of values doesn’t care about family… Faith seems to be the one thing that sustains most of those in the Religious Right. Well, faith will get you only so far says Paul: “if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
Tags: ideology, participation
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Are mandatory minimum sentences the solution to haphazard justice?
Friday, December 17th, 2010
Dec. 17, 2010
On Parliament Hill this week, legislation to impose mandatory minimum sentencing for serious drug offences was on the agenda in the House of Commons and the Senate. Currently, the law sets only maximum penalties… Minimum sentences and pattern sentencing bring “the superficial notion” that everyone charged with a particular crime will be treated the same, he said. But not everyone or every crime is the same… each case involves different circumstances and different individuals. The problem of judges doing something unacceptable can easily be remedied by appeals…
Tags: budget, crime prevention, ideology, rights
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Ontario backtracks on offering one-stop daycare, kindergarten
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
Dec. 15, 2010
A cornerstone of the government’s full-day kindergarten program was that schools were to become one-stop centres for child care and education. Boards were to be solely responsible for all aspects of educating the child, including providing before- and after-school care. But under proposed legislation the government plans to introduce next year, boards would have the option to allow daycare operators to provide before- and after-school programs.
Tags: budget, child care, ideology
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Ontario expands mediation services to 49 courts
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Dec 12 2010
Easing the emotional burdens of divorce while unclogging the court system is behind the expansion of mediation services across Ontario, says Attorney General Chris Bentley. The province is expanding a successful mediation pilot project, first started in Milton and Brampton, to all 49 court locations that hear family cases by summer 2011. For years, Ontario’s top lawyers and judges have urged that there be better ways to handle family break-ups and child custody agreements other than in a confrontational way decided in a courtroom by a judge.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
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