Governance Policy Context « Social Policy in Ontario

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Fiscal folly in Ontario: New report reveals a cheapskate province

Tuesday, April 16th, 2024

In 2022-23, Ontario spent $3,251 less per person on public programs compared to the average of the other provinces… to reach the Canadian average, we would have to spend close to 27 per cent more on programs than we do now… On the revenue side, Ontario raises $4,033 a year less per person than the average of the other provinces… we would have to increase our total revenues this year by 32 per cent to be average.

Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Court strikes down most of Ontario’s Mike Harris-era anti-panhandling law

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024

Most of Ontario’s bans on panhandling in public places… have been struck down by a Toronto judge as unconstitutional… While finding that the ban on squeegeeing and panhandling in roadways should be upheld, Centa struck down all other prohibitions on soliciting donations in public, including from people near public toilets, payphones, ATMs, taxi stands and public transit stops, as well as on transit vehicles and in parking lots.

Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
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Justin Trudeau offers provinces billions of dollars for housing — but with strings attached

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024

… $5 billion — will be tied to provinces promising to meet certain conditions, among them to allow multiplex townhouses and multi-unit apartments…. “It’s off the table for us,” Ford said last month. “We’re going to build homes, single-dwelling homes, townhomes, that’s what we’re focused on.” … The remaining $1 billion of the $6-billion infusion for housing infrastructure is to be directed to municipalities to address “urgent” infrastructure needs that directly create new housing

Tags: budget, economy, featured, housing, jurisdiction
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Ontario is dead last in program spending—again

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

In 2022, Ontario’s program spending per capita was $3,863 less than the average of the other provinces. This means that for every dollar per person spent on programs in other provinces, Ontario spent 75 cents… there is no evidence—and no one is claiming—that Ontario’s low spending is the result of some magical efficiency in program delivery here. There’s nothing efficient about having too few nurses.

Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
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The Ontario treaty deal is a game-changer for Indigenous rights

Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

The $10-billion settlement announced this week between the Robinson-Huron First Nations, Ontario and the federal government signals a tectonic shift in Indigenous-government relations… Major developments of the Ring of Fire mineral properties and other northern Ontario projects are slowed by the absence of agreements with First Nations. A new prosperity-sharing formula will be critical in breaking future logjams.

Tags: Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation, rights, standard of living
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Justin Trudeau is leaving his stamp on the Supreme Court of Canada

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

After 1982, the Supreme Court often had to determine which laws were consistent with the Charter and to clarify central aspects of the Charter… In the decades to come, Canada’s Supreme Court will undoubtedly issue rulings related to climate change, Indigenous Peoples, individual rights, the impact of technology, international relations and much more.

Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, rights
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Stephen Harper wasn’t obsessed with data. Here’s why Justin Trudeau is

Tuesday, April 4th, 2023

This whole fixation on data is, first and foremost, a big product of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the realm of health care. Trudeau has talked often about how the government learned in the early days of the pandemic just how little information it had at its fingertips… The data deficit in the current public service has also been cited as one reason the government has needed to lean so heavily on outside consulting firms

Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Federal budget 2022: Highest-earning Canadians face minimum tax rate increase

Friday, March 31st, 2023

Ottawa is raising the alternative minimum tax rate and imposing new limits on many of the exemptions, deductions and credits that apply under the system starting in 2024… it is increasing the alternative minimum rate to 20.5 per cent from 15 per cent starting in 2024… Wealthy Canadians pay the alternative minimum or regular tax, whichever is higher… about 32,000 Canadians will be covered by alternative minimum tax in 2024

Tags: budget, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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The provinces’ poor-us act on health care is wearing thin

Tuesday, March 28th, 2023

The provinces chose to ignore those tax-point grants in the recent funding debate. But a new round of tax-point transfers makes sense: it would put the ability to generate health care dollars – and the responsibility for how well they are spent – in the hands of the provinces that deliver the services.

Tags: budget, economy, jurisdiction, mental Health, tax
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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.