Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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A history of missteps [policy re: First Nations]
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Oct 30 2010
Status Indians are falling further behind other Canadians in quality of life. The Star investigates the gap, which continues to grow along with the federal bureaucracy focused on Indian issues [This article provides a chronological summary of key points in Canadian policy dealing with indigenous peoples.]
Tags: Indigenous, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates, Equality Debates | No Comments »
Ottawa still failing to deal with First Nations’ Dilemmas
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Oct 30 2010
… the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples — a 4,000 page document on Canada’s systemic mistreatment of its native peoples… made more than 400 recommendations… “The commission has given Canadians a challenge to turn their relationship with aboriginal peoples from a serious and growing problem into an asset,” a November 1996 Toronto Star editorial declared. “Just how we handle that challenge will say much about us as a nation.” Fourteen years and three prime ministers later, the five-volume report and most of its clarion calls to action remain unfulfilled.
Tags: Indigenous, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Feminomics: calculating the value of ‘women’s work’
Saturday, October 30th, 2010
Oct 30 2010
According to the old maxim, a woman’s work is never done. It certainly never counts, a least not by the economic formulae that figure out the wealth of a nation… This past summer, the Conservatives, in rewriting the long-form census, eliminated only the section on unpaid work. That means that, in the future, StatsCan won’t be able to tell us with any certainty that men perform an average of 2.5 hours of unpaid work per day while women do 4.3 hours, like they did in 2005.
Tags: ideology, rights, standard of living, women
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Legal aid funding urgent, advocates say
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
Oct. 14, 2010
Canada’s legal system should be one of the pillars of the country’s social safety net, but instead it is withering from a lack of resources, say legal aid advocates… The report, titled “Moving Forward on Legal Aid,” calls for dramatic renewal of the legal aid system in Canada with a five-point plan that includes making it an essential public service like health care. While everyone knows the impact of health and education to society… the importance of legal aid in the social fabric hasn’t been understood. Research in the last decade has shown that legal problems affect health and social well-being over all
Tags: budget, Health, participation, poverty, rights
Posted in Equality Delivery System | 2 Comments »
Equality or barbarism?
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
Oct 16 2010
For four decades after the war Canadians joined with citizens in other North Atlantic democracies in creating the most productive and equitable societies in history… For both ethical reasons and the functional need for stability, an expanding role for government and increasing equality came to be taken for granted. Left behind was the belief that individuals and the economy should be left to fend for themselves. In its place was… an idea retrieved from ancient Greece, that democracy meant more than the right set of procedures for selecting and maintaining governments. It also meant government action for the people.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality History, Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
No full-day kindergarten for First Nations kids
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010
October 11, 2010
First Nations children who attend schools on reserves are being left out of the province’s innovative all-day kindergarten plan…. First Nations students already face hurdles others students do not and are among the province’s most vulnerable children, education experts say… The investment required to support full day kindergarten programs on reserves need to come from the federal government, according to Erin Moroz, a spokesperson for Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky.
Tags: Indigenous, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
‘First Nations unfairly funded for basic services’
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010
October 12, 2010
First Nation communities that have moved forward through negotiation or settlement to advance their own jurisdiction and responsibilities, are fully transparent, accountable and demonstrate a level of service that is yielding real results. These First Nation governments exercise full responsibility and have democratic participation rates in leadership and other processes that are far stronger than anywhere else in this country. If First Nation people are “furious” about anything, it’s the unfair funding in critical areas that directly affect the well-being of our children
Tags: Indigenous, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Accountability on reserves
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
Oct. 9, 2010
The chiefs have no legal requirement to disclose their remuneration to Canadians. Even local natives have trouble jumping through the bureaucratic hoops necessary to find such information… But as we see it, the greatest threat to the image of First Nations people isn’t legislation aimed at bringing their communities into line with modern standards of good governance and transparency. Rather, it is the native leaders who, through their own AFN mouthpiece, cynically circle the wagons in defence of their cash and powers.
Tags: Indigenous
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Women need their chance to lead
Friday, October 8th, 2010
Oct. 08, 2010
In the U.S., roughly 50 per cent more women run the top 1,000 companies… In Canada, fewer women preside over significantly smaller empires. The number of women corporate officers here has grown only by 2.8 per cent since 2002. To make this charge is not an act of tokenism, charity or correctness, it is a corporate and political challenge. It is time for Canadians to… show some leadership when it comes to women and leadership.
Tags: participation, women
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Tax-exempt fortunes feed inequality
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Oct 05 2010
With income and wealth increasingly concentrated at the top, Canada is now a highly unequal society, compared with our own history and international standards… Strikingly, if Canada were to once again tax large inheritances — the way just about every other advanced nation still does — we could raise enough revenue to put $16,000 into an educational trust fund for every Canadian child on his or her 16th birthday. Under this simple plan, developed by Osgoode Hall tax professor Neil Brooks, Canadians could inherit up to $1.5 million tax-free. Above that, a gradually rising tax would apply.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »
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