Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category
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Budget promises lower deficit, but more spending on housing, defence and social programs
Thursday, April 7th, 2022
To increase revenues, the government will introduce a new tax on financial institutions… [and] serves notice on high-income earners… to decide by next year if a wealth tax… is warranted… In addition to outlays for housing and dental care, the budget pegs new spending on climate action at $12.4 billion and more than $8 billion on national defence… [but] it fails to address the crisis in health care and long-term care with meaningful measures and money…
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Always ahead of her time, Kathleen Wynne has some advice as she prepares to leave Queen’s Park
Wednesday, April 6th, 2022
The pioneering ideas Wynne fought in vain for are back in vogue after the realities of the pandemic: Child care. Check. Pharmacare. Check. Paid sick days. Check. Minimum wage increases. Check. Basic income support. Check. Wynne’s defeat led to the demise of her reforms in all these areas, as Ford’s Tories systematically dismantled what she had built. Within days of taking power, the PCs pulled the plug on her OHIP+ drug program and then went down the list.
Tags: child care, economy, Health, housing, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Close to home: The Canadian far right, COVID-19 and social media
Monday, April 4th, 2022
The far-right benefited from social media’s tendency to privilege reductionist and simplified narratives… algorithmic dynamics helped the far-right in propagating the binary populist framework — “we, the people” versus “the corrupt and evil elites,” “bad politicians and leaders” who implemented COVID-19 measures versus “good politicians and leaders” who don’t — to foster and incite rage among discontent Canadians.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, mental Health, multiculturalism, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Fair Tax Priorities For Budget 2022
Friday, April 1st, 2022
The new Supply and Confidence Agreement between the Liberal Party and the NDP promises quick action on dental care, pharmacare and long-term care to bring about substantially better healthcare for all Canadians. It also ramps up investments in affordable housing and climate action. New funds need to be identified in Budget 2022 and beyond in order to make these commitments a reality.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Senators overwhelmed by emails, calls pushing conspiracy theories about basic income legislation
Thursday, March 31st, 2022
… there’s nothing new about conspiracy theories but the pandemic has “pushed them into hyperdrive,” fuelling a movement of people willing to believe there’s a global movement to “enslave” humanity… people in these online forums are largely unaware of how the government operates — or how a bill is passed through Parliament — and those knowledge gaps “are easily filled with fantasy.” “It’s easy to see a sinister plot when you don’t actually understand how the government works.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, mental Health, pensions, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ford government appeals to Canada’s top court to keep premier’s mandate letters secret
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022
Mandate letters traditionally lay out the marching orders a premier has for each of his or her ministers after taking office — and have been routinely released by governments across the country. Ford’s government, however, has been fighting to keep his mandate letters from the public since shortly after the premier took office in June 2018… It’s unclear how many tax dollars and government resources have been spent trying to deny the public access to the mandate letters.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The ‘care economy’ is growing the government, whether conservatives like it or not
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022
The government isn’t just getting bigger. It’s getting bigger specifically in the areas where costs are most likely to grow over the long-term… National child care, having been implemented, stands a fair chance of being permanent now. And COVID-19 has spurred even penny-pinching provinces like Ontario to commit to substantial health-care capacity expansions.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Look out Conservatives — big government is back, and Canadians like it
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022
Sean Speer, former economic adviser to Stephen Harper, wrote in The Hub in February, “We’ve gone from every major political party supportive of balanced budgets as recently as 10 years ago to today’s new multi-partisan consensus in favour of larger and longer deficits. Something obviously changed.”… historians may point to the moment last week when Canada’s social-safety net was significantly, and quite possibly, permanently expanded.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
New evidence that hospital pressured to axe doctor who criticized Ford government on pandemic
Tuesday, March 29th, 2022
It’s been more than a year since Dr. Brooks Fallis was suddenly fired in January as interim head of critical care at William Osler Health System, in the hardest-hit part of Ontario. Fallis was respected and admired by peers and employers. He was also a passionate, incisive critic of the government’s pandemic response. One was given more weight by his bosses than the other.
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Run and hide! Lock your doors! The coalition government is coming for your democracy
Friday, March 25th, 2022
The true democratic disorder is when a party receives around 40 per cent of votes but gets 60 per cent of seats in Parliament, and then imposes their will on the country as if they’d received a true mandate. That’s delusional, yet it’s become our political normal. The last time a majority of seats accompanied a majority of votes was in 1984… Coalitions are by their nature improvisational and creative, so they don’t follow rule books. They’re also pretty inevitable now, since elections increasingly return minority governments.
Tags: child care, Health, housing, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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