Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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The math of inequality
Friday, October 1st, 2010
October 1, 2010
Mr. Corcoran did not seem to do his math before publishing his editorial… / Mr. Corcoran’s assiduous analysis of a particular graph does not persuade that there is no inequality of income. We’re past that — we can all see for our own eyes the glaring disparity. And it’s such a huge disparity that the direction hardly matters… nobody deserves anything; just as no one deserves to be born with Down’s syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome. How would Mr. Corcoran have fared if he was born on a reserve?… First step: Tax the super-rich (start with inheritance tax) and eliminate poverty in a week.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
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Records show which lobbyists have the prime minister’s ear
Friday, October 1st, 2010
Oct. 1, 2010
Lobbyists for Canadian industry — particularly those representing the country’s leading chief executives and the oil sector — top the list of those who got the most access to Prime Minister Stephen Harper over the last two years, government records reveal. By comparison, groups lobbying on issues such as health care and the environment barely got a foot in the door — even though the state of medicare and climate change have been major public policy issues.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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The equality obsession
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
September 17, 2010
The key to understanding the modern liberal position is that it seeks — consciously or unconsciously — to promote and exploit primitive, moralistic, economically challenged assumptions for political ends (which is pretty much a definition of left-wing politics). The alleged answer to “inequality” is “redistribution,” of which modern liberalism is the champion. The problem is that such redistribution is both morally dubious and economically damaging, not least to “the poor.”
Tags: ideology, philanthropy, tax
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Alberta eyes ‘people first’ overhaul of health care
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Sep. 16, 2010
Once considered among the foremost advocates for two-tier health care in Canada, the Alberta government has released a report that calls for changes that could reshape the province’s health system into a more public model… “Make no mistake about it: [the AHA] will be in the parameters of the Canada Health Act, and it will reflect one of Albertans’ central values – for a single-tiered, publicly funded health system.”… the system envisioned in Thursday’s report would emphasize wellness over treatment – guaranteeing access to primary care, setting up multidisciplinary teams to provide it, developing performance standards, creating a Health Charter and hiring an advocate to enforce it.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »
Expanding medicare to include drugs could save money
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
Sep 15 2010
medicare represents roughly the same proportion of the economy that it did in 1975 – about 5 per cent. In other words, visits to the doctor are not bankrupting the country. What has shot up disproportionately is the cost of drugs. And much of that cost is publicly subsidized, through tax breaks for privately insured employee health plans as well as a host of provincial and territorial programs aimed at the old, poor and very sick. This crazy-quilt system is a particularly inefficient way to provide the population with necessary drugs. And to their credit, the authors of the OECD report understand this. They recommend that Canada set up a national, public pharmacare plan–but only when it is affordable.
Tags: budget, Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates, Health Debates | No Comments »
‘Third wave’ of feminism urged by prominent Canadian women
Saturday, September 11th, 2010
Sep. 09, 2010
The second wave of feminism, which began nearly 50 years ago and which followed the first wave of the suffragettes, “was about enshrining in law [women’s] rights,”… The third wave [said Maureen McTeer] has to be about “changing attitudes.” “There’s been a lot of pushback against women’s equality and against what it stands for,” Ms. McTeer said. “There’s a need now to move beyond accepting that law is enough.”
Tags: participation, rights, standard of living, women
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Women at work: still behind on the bottom line
Saturday, September 11th, 2010
Sep. 08, 2010
Canadian women best their male counterparts in high school, college and university, but they fall starkly behind on the bottom line – in their paycheques. And the disparity looks even worse when compared with other developed countries. The findings… are partly the result of women often choosing less lucrative occupations than men – social work, say, as opposed to engineering – as well as entrenched biases in the workplace. Less clear is why… Canada lags in pay equity.
Tags: rights, standard of living, women
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It makes good sense to study native land use
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
September 6, 2010
… the federal Indian Affairs department… has now undertaken a study of 65 of Canada’s most successful native communities-about 10 per cent of the total… The study is to be focused on land-use policy, which seems reasonable but has set off alarm bells among some chiefs and others, who are jealous of their powers and wary of conservative thinkers, in and around the Conservative federal government, who have long denounced collective land use on reserves.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Say no to tinkering [First Nations]
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Sept. 3, 2010
The Harvard Project identifies the factors critical to economic success, and it’s not location or private property. It’s real decision-making authority supported by capable governing institutions that are culturally appropriate. In this way, first nations have the ability to make decisions, take responsibility for those decisions, and set a strategic direction. This is not possible under the Indian Act, which forces first nations to implement federal policies and decisions that often have no relevance to their circumstances.
Tags: economy, Indigenous, poverty
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More equal societies prove superior
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
August 24, 2010
Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett is a great book. The gist of it is that more equal societies — those where the difference in average incomes is less — are better in almost every way. The authors look at almost every social measure, from mental and physical health to violence and educational attainment, from social relations and teen pregnancy to imprisonment and longevity. In all cases, where there is a smaller gap between the average incomes of poorer and richer strata of society, people are generally healthier, happier, better adjusted, better educated and more socially cohesive.
Tags: ideology, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »
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