Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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Is the political centre disappearing along with the middle class?
… pay attention to the shrinking middle of politics, a game increasingly played at the far edges of the political spectrum, hard right versus hard left… An economy with a beleaguered middle class is one in which fear and frustration flourish… “They’re working harder than ever and not getting ahead … They suspect that the game is rigged”… The politics of resentment is easily ignited… an election campaign fought over scapegoats, rife with fear and resentment, sounds like the kind of thing we would want to avoid
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
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Wealth advantage for Canada’s affluent starts at a young age
Canada’s wealth gap is big and growing — the wealthiest 10 per cent of families enjoy a net worth that’s millions more than families in the middle of the income spectrum — and that wealth advantage starts early in an affluent family’s life. Young affluent families in their twenties have a major wealth advantage: their net worth is already higher than middle class families in their fifties and sixties.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, youth
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Bill C-24 is wrong: There is only one kind of Canadian citizen
Bill C-24… strengthens Canadian citizenship by making it more difficult to acquire… But the law has a flip side that is much darker. It gives the government the discretion to strip the citizenship of any dual citizen convicted of terrorism, treason or spying abroad. The consequences are disturbing and unfair for Canada’s 863,000 dual nationals. They run the risk of being treated as somehow less Canadian. There is an ugly, xenophobic side to this law
Tags: ideology, immigration, multiculturalism, rights
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Canadians seek leadership on inequality
The middle class started losing ground in the 1980s. But most Canadians didn’t realize it… They believed they lived in a nation in which people cared and shared. They regarded Canada’s strong, resilient middle class as its political and economic backbone. Now the trouble signals are too obvious to ignore. Middle class families are struggling financially. The social programs that used to mitigate the disparities in market income… have been sacrificed to budget balancing.
Tags: budget, child care, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Despite what the attack ads say, incomes at the very top have fallen since Harper took power
Empirical studies usually look at total income (market income plus transfers from government) and if you’re going to make a point about what governments have or have not done to reduce inequality, you’d best use after-tax income, which is the end result of the tax-and-transfer system… Regardless of what measure of income you use… top-end income shares peaked in 2006 and have been declining ever since… Virtually all the damage done since 1982 occurred before 2006.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Premier Kathleen Wynne should take on the mantle of reconciliation
The first step would be to… work with rural and urban Indigenous communities and leaders to identify which recommendations should be prioritized by the provincial government… Ontario could change how it educates… [with] new courses and curriculum requirements that properly teach the history and present-day situation of Indigenous peoples… [and] providing new funding for things like Aboriginal healing centres, alternatives to imprisonment and traditional sentencing, and Aboriginal-specific victim programs.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, Health, Indigenous, mental Health
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Accessibility: Province on right track
A more accessible society requires far more than just regulating and enforcing accessibility standards. It requires significant dialogue within our culture, something I believe is taking place in a hugely positive way and at an increasingly accelerated pace. The province’s recently released Path to 2025: Accessibility Action Plan aims to engage employers and address the systemic economic issues associated with accessibility by forging partnerships with the business community.
Tags: disabilities, economy, Health, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Eight hundred years later, Magna Carta is worth celebrating
The document – about 3,550 words in the original Latin – has had a tumultuous history… by 1300 had been translated into English and was widely known. In the centuries that followed, though, it was mostly ignored… It was only in the mid-17th century that Parliament seized on the charter in its struggle with the despotic Stuarts… The history of the Great Charter is tangled and messy. It began as an assertion of rights by a few hundred noblemen, and has become a world-wide symbol of freedom for all.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality History | No Comments »
Addressing inequality will take much more than tax code tinkering
In most countries there has been a move to lower top income tax rates and reduced taxation of corporate profits, as well as cuts to income support programs such as unemployment insurance, welfare and public pensions… If market income inequality is allowed to inexorably rise, one can expect even more resistance by the well off to redistributive policies. This suggests that more must also be done to equalize market incomes.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal sides with children’s advocate, penalizes feds
A child welfare advocate says she has been vindicated by a recent ruling from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which found a government official “retaliated” against her six years ago. The tribunal sided with Cindy Blackstock, president of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. It ordered the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to pay Blackstock $20,000 for pain and suffering… The dispute centres on a December 2009 meeting at the ministerial headquarters in Gatineau, Que… the chiefs were told if I went in the room, the meeting would not go forward.”
Tags: child care, featured, ideology, Indigenous, participation, rights, standard of living
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