Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Finance Department now a fact-free zone
Since Stephen Harper began governing Canada almost nine years ago, one of his goals has been to turn the federal government into a fact-free zone. The scrapping of the long-form census. The muzzling of government scientists. The systematic elimination of independent voices like the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. Harper simply cannot abide evidence-based advice that gets in the way of his partisan policies.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Pass the Reform Act before election clock ticks to zero
The bill aims to eliminate two tools party leaders exercise to reduce the autonomy of Members of Parliament. First, it would remove the leader’s control over the selection of local party candidates, currently enshrined in the Canada Elections Act. Second, it strengthens caucuses as decision-making bodies. These two small changes are a step in the right direction for a stronger and more representative democracy
Tags: ideology, participation, standard of living
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Social security tribunal sat idle for much of first year
The federal government announced two years ago it was creating a streamlined social security tribunal that would save Canadian taxpayers $25 million a year, but some well-paid new members had nothing to do during its first year of operation.
“The tribunal — the one that was supposed to save money — had 30-40 people making $100,000 a year sitting at home that first year”… Longtime stakeholders suggest the government had ulterior motives in slowing down the appeals process. “Those who successfully appeal do not receive any interest on the years of retroactive benefits…”
Tags: budget, ideology
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Ottawa moves to strip power from top public health scientist
Buried in the current omnibus budget bill being studied by Parliament last week is a plan to demote the chief public health officer of Canada. He will no longer hold a deputy minister rank, he will have no direct line to the federal minister of health, he will be subservient to a bureaucratic agency president and he will have no secure public funding… Demotion and politicization of the chief public health officer… seems to be linked more to the public gagging of our government scientists than about promoting health or the public good.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology
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Stephen Lewis roars once more in takedown of Stephen Harper government
The former Ontario NDP leader, United Nations ambassador and lifelong human rights advocate took aim at the “pre-paleolithic Neanderthals” in office and their role in the decline of Parliament, the suppression of dissent, the plight of First Nations, their blinkered climate-change policy and our plummeting world status… He joins a line of political elders who are taking increasingly harsh stock of this government’s performance.
Tags: ideology, Indigenous, participation, rights, standard of living, women
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New federal ad campaign is unprincipled and undemocratic
… pitches touting earlier versions of the government’s Economic Action Plan have so far cost well over $100 million in total… such advertising is meant to keep Canadians informed about federal programs and services. But the measures being hyped in this latest round of Tory self-promotion haven’t even been passed by Parliament… Self-congratulatory government ads, lauding programs that aren’t even in place, are an obvious and unfair misuse of public money.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Toronto children need more prosperity, not more charity
… fully 29 per cent of children in this city live in poverty… Typically, the response, public and private, is to focus on programs that deal with the symptoms of poverty rather than its sources… Ottawa has abandoned the poor and the cost of poverty to local governments, which don’t have the means to deal with either… That’s because cities have little control over economic matters… Meanwhile, the Conservative government boasts of its impending surplus. This is pure illusion; the deficit hasn’t gone away, it’s been dumped on Canada’s cities.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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Children’s rights milestone should inspire more action
It is unacceptable that 17,000 children still die every day from preventable causes and that 57 million children are out of school and another 200 million still can’t read and write by grade four… The Convention on the Rights of the Child turns 25 years old this week… in Canada we spend a meagre 0.27 per cent of our GDP on foreign aid — it is just a matter of political and societal will, and a commitment to invest in the world’s poorest people.
Tags: budget, child care, globalization, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
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‘I’m Still Waiting for Someone to Come up with Communism 2.0’
What I miss is the dream of communism, one of the great dreams of the 20th century, one that never came into existence, except as a cruel parody. It’s clear that global capitalism, while it has produced a relatively rich material life for many Canadians, is not the solution to our search for a meaningful life… There ought to be another, better world possible, with a fairer economic system, one that doesn’t dominate all our values.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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The courts have spoken on aboriginal rights. Governments must act
TheGlobeandMail.com – Globe Debate Nov. 14 2014. Bob Rae Bob Rae is former premier of Ontario and a former Member of Parliament When chief justice Marshall of the United States Supreme Court presided over a majority decision insisting that only the national government, and not the state of Georgia, could make decisions on Indian affairs, […]
Tags: featured, ideology, Indigenous, rights, standard of living
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