Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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Canada at 150: The Social Agenda
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
March 30, 2010
This paper is the text of the speech delivered at the Canada@150 Conference held in Montréal on March 26-28, 2010. The country will face three main social challenges in future: Canada as productive society, Canada as caring society and Canada as aging society. From a social perspective, the productive society focuses on a learning agenda and on measures to reduce poverty and assist the unemployed.
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Let’s give the First Nations homes of their own
Saturday, March 27th, 2010
March 27, 2010
We are proposing that the federal government pass a First Nations Property Ownership Act so that First Nations across Canada can have clear underlying and individual property ownership, should they so choose. The benefits of a First Nations property ownership would be substantial. ..
Tags: Indigenous, privatization
Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »
First nations property rights: Going beyond the Indian Act
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
Mar. 23, 2010
Quite simply, those first nations wishing to take over the responsibility of ownership should be able to acquire the title to their reserves from the Crown, thus emancipating themselves from the stifling paternalism of the Indian Act…
There should be a voluntary approach to property rights. First nations who want fee simple ownership should be emancipated from the Indian Act and allowed – not forced – to create those rights.
Tags: Indigenous
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For students both on and off reserves
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Mar. 16, 2010
In its last budget, the federal government reannounced a two-year-old commitment to reform aboriginal student support. Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has called for 65,000 more aboriginal postsecondary graduates, in order to narrow the income gap. They should work together to make sure that pilot projects that explore these options get off the ground.
Tags: Indigenous
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Historic moment for nation’s disabled
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Mar 17 2010
Last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in New York. “This is a historic moment,” said Laurie Beachell, national coordinator of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. “We believe it turns a new page in the history of equality of Canadians with disabilities.”
Tags: featured
Posted in Equality Debates | 4 Comments »
Ask not what Ottawa can do for you? [immigration guide]
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
March 16, 2010
What distinguishes Canada from so much of the non-Western world is that, human rights commissions notwithstanding, the government is restrained from interfering in personal matters of religion and thought… The 68-page guide devotes less than half a page (roughly 14 lines) to the totality of our traditional ordered liberties, including habeas corpus. And those 14 lines are merely a list with no elaboration or examples.
Tags: immigration
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Offside calls on Jason Kenney [same-sex marriage]
Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Mar. 13, 2010
For Canada’s new Citizenship and Immigration study guide to stay at its current length and include the words “Same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005” – words cut, as we learned last week… we would’ve had to lose the words “Canadian children have collected hockey cards for generations.”
…Imagine you were raised somewhere you’d be discriminated against or beaten senseless or risk untimely death because of your hockey-card collection – or that you yourself, while uninterested in collecting cards, beat other people in your homeland with impunity the second you discovered that they owned a deck.
Tags: immigration
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The mother of all loopholes [non-resident tax-free status]
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
March 10, 2010
… the Conservative’s snipping of a raft of erroneous tax loopholes met with near universal applause, and rightly so. It strains credulity to imagine how it was in taxpayers’ interest to subsidize fellow Canadians’ Botox treatments and chin tucks. Similarly it defies logic, in an era of fiscal restraint, to allow corporate mucky-mucks to use generous stock options to take gobs of cash out of their companies tax free.
Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »
We view immigration in a positive light
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Mar 08 2010
The Harper government’s shift from permanent immigrants to temporary foreign workers is starkly at odds with public opinion. An overwhelming majority of Canadians – 76 per cent – want immigrants who come here to stay, build a life here and become contributing citizens…
Despite our own economic troubles, we remain a welcoming people. We recognize the need to shore up our aging workforce with newcomers. We continue to see immigrants as an asset, diversity as a source of strength and language training as a sensible investment.
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Raise rates on highest tax bracket
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Mar 06 2010
Tax cuts for the wealthy during the past 10 years have increased income inequality, beggared social programs and hampered our government’s ability to respond to the current recession.
The top 20 per cent of income earners in Canada have seen their incomes rise fastest and furthest in recent times. These people should bear the costs of recovery more than those who have gained least.
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