Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category
Doug Ford appointed unqualified party loyalists to fill key tribunal spots. Now Ontarians are paying the price as wait lists swell
Wednesday, December 14th, 2022
Tribunals are supposed to be the one place where justice, and access to justice, is equal for all — an alternative to high-priced lawyers and endless court dates. Yet Ontario’s front-line administrative tribunals have become dysfunctional on Ford’s watch… Ordinary Ontarians are paying the price for the premier’s pork barrelling, with a queue exceeding 67,000 cases in key areas:
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Preventing use of the notwithstanding clause is a bad idea — and unnecessary
Tuesday, November 15th, 2022
Questions that could be asked of the Supreme Court include: When can section 33 be used? How does the word “notwithstanding” in Sec. 33 relate to the words “notwithstanding anything” in Sec. 28’s equal rights guarantee? How can the clause be amended? … Rather than stoking a constitutional crisis through disallowance, this reference would allow the federal government to de-escalate tensions and, most importantly, clarify the scope of the notwithstanding clause.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Why voting for municipal action on affordable housing is in everyone’s interest
Monday, October 24th, 2022
Many people with mental illness and addictions, older adults, people with disabilities and victims of violence can only maintain housing with help. Encampments are a symptom of inadequate supportive housing. And demonstration projects have shown that supportive housing for high-need clients is cost effective, reducing service use in other sectors like hospitals, emergency services, policing and the criminal justice system. But this type of supported housing is woefully undersupplied.
Tags: housing, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Alternative Federal Budget 2023: Rising to the challenge
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
… The ongoing impact of Covid-19, inflation gnawing at stagnant paycheques, a health care system squeezed to the limit, the climate crisis, and the ongoing need to dismantle colonialism and systemic racism… The AFB advances solutions and places the responsibility for change squarely on the federal government, working with the provinces and territories, to rise to the challenge…
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, Indigenous, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Pierre Poilievre vs. the elites (unless they’re rich)
Sunday, September 18th, 2022
Decades of regressive tax measures, particularly lower rates of tax on business and capital, have had a significant role to play in wealth inequality. Progressive adjustments to our tax system could help reduce it. Yet it seems no amount of wealth disparity or empirical evidence can sidetrack Poilievre from his mission to make tax a four-letter word.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Liberals to announce plan to double GST tax credit, launch youth dental care and top up housing benefits, NDP sources say
Thursday, September 8th, 2022
The New Democrats say they have inked an agreement with the Liberals… that would double the GST tax credit for a period of six months. About 12 million Canadians could be eligible… Both parties also reached consensus on a plan that could see low-income youth under 12 receive a cheque for dental services by the end of the year. The plan is intended to be a temporary solution until a permanent dental care plan can be implemented by the end of 2023 and extended to those under 18, seniors and people living with a disability.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, Health, housing, ideology, Seniors, standard of living, tax, youth
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Provinces need to have a plan for health-care funding — or they shouldn’t get the money
Monday, August 15th, 2022
Provinces want $28 billion more from the feds for health care… Yes, health care needs more funding. But negotiations need to focus on producing better results. Our premiers need to do more than just acquire more money — they need to govern our public resources, and show us their plans for using an infusion of federal dollars so we can buy change. No plan? No money.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, jurisdiction, mental Health
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
What is Doug Ford hiding in his mandate letters to government ministers?
Thursday, August 4th, 2022
Ever since he became premier in 2018, Ford has refused to let the public see his mandate letters to his cabinet ministers. Indeed, Ford is so desperate to keep the letters secret that he’s waging a costly legal battle to prevent their release. It’s a fight he has lost all the way to Ontario’s top court and is now appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada… he’s also keeping the letters secret even from key bureaucrats who help analyze and formulate government policy.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Healthcare needs collaboration, not finger-pointing
Monday, July 18th, 2022
The health-care crisis is different in nature from the pandemic, but alike in urgency. As such, it is a challenge of sufficient scale and complexity to be addressed at the first ministers’ level. This is especially true when [negotiating] pharmacare and national dental care programs… Collaboration on those files and addressing the crisis must involve more than cheque-writing that pours more money into systems proving inefficient. It must involve systemic and structural reforms to help make the healthcare system more sustainable – and easily accessible.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The Rogers outage, and other scenes from the death of neo-liberalism
Friday, July 15th, 2022
The premiers met in B.C. this week and wailed hysterically about needing more money to fix health care. I wouldn’t give them another cent till they pass a written test on what went wrong. They adopted the just-in-time principle from manufacturing (which led to bottlenecks and inflation now rampant) for health. They cut staff to a minimum. Why? Because it fit with the neo-liberal agenda to slash taxes and pay for it with decreased spending on public programs… Then when COVID hit, the system began to crumble.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Debates, Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
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