Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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Ontario Human Rights Code amended to protect transgendered people
Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
Jun 13 2012
The transgendered Torontonian has had difficulty applying for credit cards, student loans, identification cards, and accessing health care, employment and housing. So Wednesday’s vote by MPPs to enshrine “gender identity” and “gender expression” in the Ontario Human Rights Code is a landmark moment… Ontario has become the first jurisdiction in North America — other than the Northwest Territories — to enact protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression
Tags: rights
Posted in Equality Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Native patience runs thin four years after residential-school apology
Tuesday, June 12th, 2012
Jun. 11 2012
… patience with discussions about poverty, housing, resource-sharing and education is wearing thin among first nations… the federal government is fighting in court to quash demands from first-norganizations to fund aboriginal child welfare at the same level as provincial governments. On education, demands that first-nations schooling be funded at the same level as provincial schools have been met with process – a task force… and promises for legislation down the road.
Tags: Indigenous, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
If Canada doesn’t tackle income disparity, the economy will suffer
Monday, June 11th, 2012
Jun 11, 2012
Inequality is growing faster in Canada than in the United States… We can reform Canada’s tax and transfer system to reduce the burden on low income Canadians and help boost people over the welfare wall… Looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul. It’s good for business. The long term social costs of inequality and loss of opportunity are far more expensive than the measures to address it. Besides, business should be concerned that the public could lose faith in a market-based economy if they no longer have hope for economic and social success.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario government faces lawsuits over troubled Family Health Teams
Saturday, June 9th, 2012
Jun 8, 2012
The move to FHTs also has seen more than 2.1 million Ontarians who didn’t have a family doctor get one. Rolled out in five waves starting in 2005, Ontario has poured millions into the teams — $244-million in fiscal 2010-11 and $347-million in fiscal 2011-12 alone — and now has 200 FHTs across the province, serving 2.8 million patients… The auditors urged the government to strengthen the conflict-of-interest section of the agreements it signs with FHTs… Almost half the 200 FHTs, for instance, are physician-led… For the doctor-led family health teams, it means that only members of the FHOs (that is, the physicians) are voting members of the FHT board.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates, Health Delivery System | 1 Comment »
… the Occupiers’ new slogan: Feed the poor! Tax the veterinarians!
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
Jun 6, 2012
the study also looked closely into who qualifies for the Canadian 1%. They are overwhelmingly male, generally over the age of 35 and spread across multiple economic sectors. While the average wage of someone in the 1%, as said above, is $450,000, the minimum wage required to enter it is a surprisingly low $230,000 a year. That’s a lot of money, but not huge money. And those making it aren’t the stock brokers and financial executives you’d expect. Indeed, for every banker on the list, you’ll find a dentist or veterinarian.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Update on the class war: 1% winning, 99% regrouping
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
May. 12, 2012
… there’s far more wealth in Canada today than ever before. Per capita GDP is 50 per cent higher (adjusting for inflation) than 30 years ago. Yet most of that wealth has been transferred to the richest Canadians through tax cuts and government subsidies. Since 1980, the ultra-rich have increased their share of the national income from 8.1 per cent to 13 per cent, a shift of $67-billion. Here’s a strange coincidence. The combined federal and provincial deficits now run at about $65-billion annually.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
It’s tougher than ever to enforce your human rights in Ontario
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
May 09 2012
Six years ago, to speed up a slow, backlogged system that needed reform, Bill 107 privatized human rights enforcement. It took the Human Rights Commission out of screening, investigating and prosecuting individual discrimination cases. It makes discrimination victims investigate and litigate their cases at the tribunal without the commission’s help. Does Bill 107 make lives better for victims of discrimination? Far from it… We hope this current Human Rights Code Review will recognize these amply-documented problems, and make strong recommendations to improve Ontario’s troubled human rights system.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, featured, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
For Two Economists, the Buffett Rule Is Just a Start
Sunday, May 6th, 2012
April 16, 2012
Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have spent the last decade tracking the incomes of the poor, the middle class and the rich in countries across the world. More than anything else, their work shows that the top earners in the United States have taken a bigger and bigger share of overall income over the last three decades, with inequality nearly as acute as it was before the Great Depression… “People say that reducing inequality is radical. I think that tolerating the level of inequality the United States tolerates is radical.”
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Few people stay poor
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
Apr 30, 2012
Over the period 2002 to 2007, which is the latest available data, 80% of Canadians did not experience low income, defined as falling below Statistics Canada’s low-income cutoff. Roughly 8% experienced low income for one of the six years covered in the period. Only 2.1% of Canadians experienced low income for each of the six years… Canada is a mobile society characterized by both increases and decreases in income that are largely connected with natural changes in one’s life. Thankfully, the data have consistently shown an upward path for incomes and increasing opportunity for workers.
Tags: economy, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Aboriginal reconciliation: An open letter to Stephen Harper
Monday, April 30th, 2012
Apr. 30, 2012
Your apology and any actions you have undertaken since have only been the expedient motions demanded by tragedy, catastrophe or the public outing of your government’s callous indifference to the needs of Canada and her people. Because it’s not just aboriginal people you harm when you deign to disengage us from vehicles of healing. You harm Canada. You make the entire country less.
Tags: budget, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
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