Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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The 1 Percent’s Solution
The austerity agenda looks a lot like a simple expression of upper-class preferences, wrapped in a facade of academic rigor… Does a continuing depression actually serve the interests of the wealthy? That’s doubtful, since a booming economy is generally good for almost everyone. What is true, however, is that the years since we turned to austerity have been dismal for workers but not at all bad for the wealthy… The 1 percent may not actually want a weak economy, but they’re doing well enough to indulge their prejudices.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Political expediency trumps First Nations issues
Problems go unaddressed, and bureaucrats in Ottawa treat these communities with remote detachment. The solution, from the colonial office’s perspective, has been to blame the victims. This approach was made crystal clear when Prime Minister Harper, by denigrating sociology, scoffed at people who look for root causes and underlying reasons for social problems… In a world of simple solutions… we find that First Nations issues are ignored today while the government’s ideological agenda and appeal to the Conservative party’s base forms its aboriginal policy.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, Indigenous, rights, women
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Pressure builds for action on income polarization
… averages mask worrisome trends. Some groups are falling behind faster, facing bigger obstacles. The largest is unattached adults between the ages of 18 and 65. Caught in a low-wage labour market or unable to find work, their standard of living has fallen markedly. So have those of new immigrants and visible minorities… It also gives policy-makers an easy excuse to do nothing. Why should they act when the problem is solving itself?
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
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A spectacle of hypocrisy and farce’: North Korea, Iran attack Canada’s human rights record at UN forum
Canada faced the critiques Friday in Geneva during its command appearance before the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review, which looks at all UN members’ human rights records every four years…. A total of 83 states participated in Canada’s review… “Canada has not been listening to civil society, labour and indigenous voices in Canada”… Canada accepted fewer than half of the 68 recommendations from member states at the last review, partially rejecting 22 and completely rejecting 14. “The bulk of [the recommendations] are important, relevant and appropriate,”
Tags: ideology, Indigenous, rights, standard of living
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Canadian tax cheats come clean amid close scrutiny of offshore havens
Wealthy Canadians with money stashed overseas have come forward in droves to confess their misdeeds after secret lists began circulating with the names of people apparently evading taxes in foreign banking havens. The Canada Revenue Agency has seen the number of voluntary disclosures of foreign, unreported income rise dramatically…
Tags: budget, crime prevention, economy, globalization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Delivery System | 1 Comment »
What happens to the offshore tax havens?
Apr. 9, 2013
Prosecutions for offshore tax evasion have been relatively rare in Canada. This may now be changing — though investigations and prosecutions can take years. Some offshore account-holders will make voluntary disclosure to the CRA to correct past filings. There may be some settlements and some plea bargains. Ultimately, however, those expecting large-scale convictions may well be disappointed.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, rights, tax
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Ontario’s gender pay gap inspires call for Equal Pay Day
Apr 09 2013
Ontario’s Equal Pay Coalition… is… calling on Premier Kathleen Wynne to declare April 9 Equal Pay Day to raise awareness and work to close the province’s 28-per-cent gender pay gap. (On average, a woman makes 72 cents for every dollar a man earns.)… women still have to work an additional 13 years to earn the same pay as men earn by age 65,”… Since 60 per cent of minimum wage earners are women, “a minimum wage increase would be an instant down-payment on pay equity,”
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living, women
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Harper government’s fraudulent attempt to look tough on tax havens
Apr 09 2013
The enormity of the scam that tax havens offer the tax-evading rich — and the horrendous hole they leave in national coffers around the world — has long been known and largely ignored, even as governments obsess about the resulting deficits… With 450 Canadians identified — and estimates of an annual revenue loss of $8 billion from tax havens, according to Canadians for Tax Fairness — even the Harper government could be obliged to overcome its reluctance to go after wealthy cheats.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Statistics seldom tell the whole story
Apr 05 2013
There is an imbalance, Fallis admits. The average chief executive earns 220 times as much as the average worker. And trouble signals are flashing: swelling food bank use, chronic homelessness, increasing inequality of incomes. But overall, he insists, “the steady reduction in poverty is one of Canada’s great accomplishments of the last 30 years.”
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
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How Martin Luther King’s legacy speaks to our Canadian reality
Apr 03 2013
In Canada, we have spent $11.3 billion on the mission in Afghanistan, yet in the latest federal budget there was little for the 3.2 million of our fellow citizens who live in poverty. We can afford to spend upward of $25 billion on new fighter jets to patrol the skies, but do not have the money to address the crisis of affordable housing that leaves so many Canadians homeless or precariously housed… We live with racial inequalities … yet do little to address institutionalized racism in our labour markets and criminal justice systems.
Tags: economy, homelessness, ideology, Indigenous, multiculturalism, poverty, standard of living
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