Archive for the ‘Equality Debates’ Category

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It took a deadly pandemic to get Toronto to embrace a faster way to build affordable housing

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

Toronto council endorsed a plan to build 250 units of housing for people in the shelter system. The units, funded by a combination of municipal and federal cash, will be built using a modular process, constructed off-site then shipped to Toronto where they can be hoisted up by cranes and snapped together like Lego pieces.

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Ottawa boosts aid package to students, pledges incentives to find work

Thursday, April 30th, 2020

Under the program, post-secondary students, recent graduates and those headed to school in the fall are eligible to get monthly payments of $1,250 a month between May and August. It also promises up to $5,000 for students who volunteer… The government agreed to increase the monthly payments to those with dependants and disabilities by $250 to $2,000 a month… The government agreed to implement new financial incentives and measures to “connect Canadians, particularly students and Canadian youth, to the various jobs available.”

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Pandemic has exposed the rifts in our social fabric

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

The pandemic will end, but structural inequities – ones that ensure that those who are most well off are the best protected – will not, unless we insist on correcting a long-standing pattern of social wrongs. If anything good is to come out of a pandemic that shook the world, surely it must be our collective will to seize this opportunity and take stock so that we can move towards a more just society.

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Financial security for the missing middle will be needed post pandemic

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

The shortcomings of EI became starkly clear during the frantic rush to create an emergency benefit to assist the millions of Canadians with no coverage… Canada will survive the crisis. But when we’re on the other side, we will need more than lifeboats to keep the missing middle afloat. We will need to shore up the system of “adult benefits” that had long been sinking and is in need of major repair.

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COVID-19 is not the great leveller, it’s the great revealer

Thursday, April 16th, 2020

It is nice for Premiers and Prime Ministers to thank truck drivers and grocery store clerks for their essential work, but it will be hypocrisy of the highest order for our governments to only hope to start up again where we left off. Inequality has been robbing many Canadians of security, prosperity, and dignity for decades. That is what COVID-19 reveals. No, we don’t just have an adjustment problem; we have—as we have long had—an inequality problem.

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Pull Yourself Up by Bootstraps? Go Ahead, Try It

Sunday, March 1st, 2020

… this bootstraps narrative drives out good policy in three ways. First, it suggests that historically Americans rose purely through rugged individualism… Second, the bootstraps narrative often suggests that benefits programs are counterproductive because they foster “dependency.” … Third, the bootstraps narrative implies that… because some people can run a four-minute mile, everyone can… American children need fewer wagging fingers or homilies about bootstraps, and more helping hands.

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The federal government needs to tax our inheritances

Wednesday, February 19th, 2020

We are demanding the federal government establish a progressive inheritance tax that hits the top 10 per cent of estates, increasing to a marginal rate of 55 per cent on estates over $7.5 million… We’re also calling for a wealth tax that hits the top 10 per cent of Canadians, increasing to a marginal rate of 10 per cent on each dollar of wealth over $20 million, exempting principal residences… These two policies affect only individuals in the top 10 per cent

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For both Alberta and Indigenous peoples, now is the winter of our disrespect

Friday, February 14th, 2020

… this isn’t about a mine any longer, or the environment, or the economy: it’s about respect… the closer you approach respect – reconciliation is another word – as an objective, in haste to atone for past sins, the faster it recedes. For without grievances, there is no leverage.

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What’s the best vaccine against mental health? Reducing inequality.

Monday, January 27th, 2020

ThinkUpstream.net – Currents January 27, 2020.   Trish Hennessy This week our social media feeds will light up with Bell Let’s Talk encouragement to collectively work on de-stigmatizing mental health issues by talking about it. The more we talk about it, the more we de-stigmatize. The more we de-stigmatize it, the more we understand how […]

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Here’s why men still get paid more than women

Sunday, January 19th, 2020

… older men and women are almost equally engaged in caregiving of some kind, but when it comes to working-age caregivers, women are spending more time than men helping those close to them, and handling far more of the tasks that are not compatible with work… The easy government policy responses to confront the wage gap have already been implemented, says Schirle, and the impact for many women is barely perceptible.

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