Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category
The Case for a Mixed Economy
… there’s no reason to think the private sector does these things better than the public. Private insurers don’t obviously provide a service that couldn’t be provided, probably more cheaply, by national health insurance. Private hospitals aren’t obviously either better or more efficient than public. For-profit education is actually a disaster area. So you could imagine an economy in which the bulk of education, health, and social assistance currently in the private sector became public, with most people at least as well off as they are now.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living
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Tories’ Bill 66 would undermine clean-water protections that followed Walkerton tragedy, victims and advocates warn
Last week, the government tabled a new piece of legislation, Bill 66, that, if passed, would allow commercial development to bypass several long-standing laws meant to protect the natural environment and the health of residents, including the Clean Water Act that was put in place following the Walkerton tragedy… The stated purpose of the proposed bill, called the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, is to cut “red tape” around planning approvals for businesses looking to invest in local communities.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, rights, standard of living
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WSIB staffers decry chaos caused by ‘broken’ system that’s putting injured workers at risk
Chronic understaffing, long wait times and chaotic case management at Ontario’s workers compensation board are putting vulnerable accident victims at risk, compromising the integrity of the provincial compensation system, and jeopardizing financial accountability, according to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s own employees.
Tags: disabilities, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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Call to create national plan to fight plastic waste gets full House support
A motion calling for Canada to create a national strategy to combat plastics pollution received unanimous support in the House of Commons on Wednesday… “They put the environment first, ahead of partisan politics”… the motion calls on the federal government to develop a national strategy to attack the root cause of plastic waste in the ocean, and to help organizations working to preserve coastal communities.
Tags: economy, globalization, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Ontario’s fiscal watchdog says deficit is $1.2B lower than claimed, but warns of huge future shortfalls
“While the government has not indicated when it intends to balance the budget, it has committed to not raising taxes,” said Weltman. To get Ontario back into the black before the 2022 election without tax hikes would require that program spending growth be held at 1.2 per cent annually. That would require Ford’s government to cut the equivalent of $850 per person from today’s levels by the next campaign.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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PC bait and switch on climate change punishes Ontario taxpayers to pay off polluters
Rather than imposing a price on carbon pollution as a cost of doing business, the Tories are shifting the burden to taxpayers by making them subsidize big business. Instead of polluters paying up, polluters are being paid off with $400 million in corporate carbon welfare that comes at taxpayers’ expense. Turns out that the premier’s famous “axe the tax” slogan served to disguise a bait-and-switch ploy that lets big business escape unscathed — taking the hatchet to taxpayer’s pocketbooks while slashing environmental protection.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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After GM, we need a plan for the 21st-century workplace
It’s the loss of stable, full-time unionized jobs that is feeding the crisis of inequality… Employment Insurance, for example, is still based on an old model of full-time, permanent jobs… It would mean, in short, designing an entire social eco-system appropriate to an age when life-long, stable employment is a rarity rather than the rule. It would assume that many people, perhaps most, will move among many employers and need both income support and effective training along the way.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Ottawa just quietly launched a new kind of capitalism
Buried deep in his speech, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the Social Finance Fund, a $755-million investment to kickstart Canada’s social-finance market… Social finance fills the wide-open space between business and philanthropy. It challenges the notion that financial profit and social purpose are mutually exclusive by creating new business models and investment vehicles that aim to create a measurable social or environmental benefit while also making a financial return.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology
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How Non-Profit Housing Developers Could Ease Toronto’s Affordability Crisis
… investing in permanent housing solutions, like those provided by non-profit developers, would produce long-term savings. “If something financially makes sense, which is to invest in housing for homeless populations, why wouldn’t you do it? The only answer to that is ideology,” Adams says. “And it’s this belief that ideology, the private sector, the for-profit sector… is going to be a partner in the solution,” says Adams. “We have been beating that drum for 20 years now. Guess what, it didn’t work.”
Tags: economy, featured, homelessness, housing, ideology, standard of living
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