Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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Workfare can do for First Nations what it did for Mike Harris’ Ontario
Saturday, June 9th, 2012
Jun 7, 2012
Opponents claim workfare boosted the ranks of the working poor – people left welfare to find employment in low earning and insecure jobs. But even they do not dispute that welfare rolls fell by more than half a million people after 1995. The Harris government was indeed fortunate that the introduction of the policy coincided with the end of the recession. Nevertheless, it achieved its policy goal… The new policy stems from a 2009 evaluation of the government’s native income assistance program, which found a dependency ratio rate of 36% on reserve in 2005/6, compared to a national rate of 5.5%.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, rights
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How the Liberals buried a $14 billion liability late in the day [WSIB]
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
Jun 04 2012
The WSIB has only 55 per cent of what it needs to meet its obligations. In other provinces, its counterparts are more or less fully funded. The problem is that Ontario businesses keep complaining they’re tapped out, while payouts and other costs keep rising… Businesses demand that the WSIB operate in a more businesslike way, but then demand a break on premiums. If car or home insurance companies provided insurance at a loss — or without well-paid actuaries — they wouldn’t stay in business… the government promises it will be fixed ASAP. Target date: 2027.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, pensions, tax
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Canadians with disabilities could fill labour gap
Friday, June 1st, 2012
May 31 2012
According to Statistics Canada, people with disabilities are significantly under-represented in the workforce: 75 per cent of people without disabilities were employed in Canada in 2006, compared with only 51 per cent of the disabled. So how do we begin to address this gap? Let’s look at three areas: professional organizations, unions and private business… Canada leads the world in terms of access and attainment of post-secondary education for people with disabilities… Now it is up to employers, labour unions and professional regulatory bodies to work together to ensure that the human capital that has been developed as result of taxpayer and student investment in higher education is not wasted.
Tags: disabilities, economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Harper is right: Foreign radicals are after the oil sands
Monday, May 28th, 2012
May. 26, 2012
The perfect archetypes of the 1 per cent, the Kochs now fund everything from the government-hating Tea Party to the far right wing of the Republican Party, to a vast labyrinth of think tanks, foundations, not-for-profits and political front groups. All are designed with two related objectives: to oppose any government regulation that limits the unrestricted operations of the oil industry, the basis of their fortune, and to discredit climate science and clean energy while denying global warming… Since the Canadian Revenue Agency is busy hunting down non-profits who are abusing their charitable status, it will no doubt be interested in the $1.7-million the Fraser Institute received from “sources outside Canada,” nearly 16 per cent of its funding.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, rights
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EI changes driven by contempt and ideology
Sunday, May 27th, 2012
May 25 2012
Its biggest failing is that it no longer helps most of the jobless… only 40 per cent of the unemployed even qualify for benefits. In Toronto, that figure drops to 26 per cent… EI now pays for maternity, parental and compassionate leaves. It funds training programs and subsidizes self-employed fishermen. All of these may deserve government support. But they have little to do with a program that is supposed to help the jobless get by while they search for work. The government’s new rules deal with none of the program’s real problems.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, rights
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The troubling truth about free trade
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012
May. 21, 2012
If the goal is truly boosting trade (as opposed to enshrining business-friendly economic rules or propping up authoritarian governments in Latin America), then this government is failing miserably. Canada’s export failure cannot be blamed on foreign trade barriers. Instead, we must look in the mirror – at the structural inadequacy of our business sector. Canada has chronically failed to nurture and develop domestically based globally active firms that produce innovative, high-value products for world markets.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
Monday, May 21st, 2012
May 21,2012
While it may seem counterintuitive, now is the time for Canadians who actually believe in government and nation building to be contemplating big ideas, the ones that will take us the next step to equality, economic stability and environmental sustainability. Why? Because if we don’t try to get what we want we won’t even get what we need…. Capitalism will be around for a while yet but its current incarnation, the savage capitalism of Wall Street and deregulation needs to be put to rest… The experiment with government ‘getting out of the way’ of business has been an abject failure.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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The Structural Revolution
Sunday, May 13th, 2012
May 7, 2012
There are several overlapping structural problems. First, there are those surrounding globalization and technological change. Hyperefficient globalized companies need fewer workers. As a result, unemployment rises, superstar salaries surge while lower-skilled wages stagnate, the middle gets hollowed out and inequality grows… The current model, in which we try to compensate for structural economic weakness with tax cuts and an unsustainable welfare state, simply cannot last. The old model is broken… Structuralists face a tension: How much should you reduce the pain the unemployed are feeling now, and how much should you devote your resources to long-term reform?
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Toronto incubates new brand of business-charity hybrids
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
May 01 2012
Social enterprises are business-charity hybrids. They aim to do well in the marketplace in order to do good in the community. The concept is not new. Long before anyone was theorizing about it, Maritimers were doing it. Dairy famers built co-op creameries to cut their costs and stabilize their communities… These grassroots initiatives were one of the best anti-poverty programs ever conceived… In the ’60s, it petered out. Today’s social enterprise movement is a digital, secular, urban renaissance of that tradition.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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The professional-class bubble is bursting
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
Apr. 28, 2012
The Great Reset has hit the professional classes too. Young professionals are facing a painful double squeeze. The cost of a degree has gone way up, and the economic benefit it confers has gone way down. Think twice before you encourage your daughter to go to law or med school, especially if she’ll have to borrow heavily to do it. On top of that, these young professionals are starting their working lives later than ever before. By the time they are credentialed and hit the work force, they’re in their early 30s… The professional classes can’t escape the gales of change that are ripping through society. They’ll adapt. But they’ll never be so comfortable again.
Tags: economy, standard of living, youth
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