Archive for the ‘Inclusion Debates’ Category
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More immigrants are in Canada’s national interest
Thursday, August 4th, 2011
Aug. 04, 2011
Canada accepted 17 per cent more migrants last year than in 2005. In a time of recession when other Western governments are imposing strict limits on migration, Canada admitted 50,000 more migrants in 2010 than in 2009. Over the past 25 years, the total number of international migrants doubled to more than 200 million. We should expect that number to double again in the next two decades… On the whole, migrants contribute more to the public purse than they receive in benefits… (and) can deliver far more for global prosperity than foreign aid and international trade ever will.
Tags: economy, ideology, immigration, standard of living
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Wild applause for teen’s 2 a.m. speech for libraries
Monday, August 1st, 2011
July 30, 2011
Annika Tabovaradan addresses Toronto City Council members at 2 a.m. and makes a tearful plea to keep area libraries open. She already has to wait 30 minutes for computer time.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, poverty, tax
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Norway shows we must expose dangerous fictions
Monday, August 1st, 2011
Jul. 30, 2011
There’s nothing wrong with criticizing immigration, even urging that it be stopped completely. Or with condemning “multiculturalism,” however it’s defined, or with arguing that religion, even specific religions, is bad for society. Those are important topics in a democratic society… But these writers have created a larger fiction, one with dangerous implications… they conclude with a millenarian message of impending societal takeover, in which the demographic and cultural fictions are combined into an urgent warning that, unless an unspecified something is done, we’ll all be under “their” command.
Tags: ideology, immigration, multiculturalism, participation
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Public must have its say
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Jul 19 2011
Councillors also need to hear from those who want to preserve what makes our city great… There’s a legitimate debate to be had over delivering services more effectively, lobbying Queen’s Park for more support, trimming what waste the consultants may identify and raising taxes to make up any shortfall. But no city achieves greatness by blindly pinching programs and slashing services. What Toronto needs is a vision that soars, not one that shrinks from challenges.
Tags: budget, participation, standard of living
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Acronyms reduce citizens to baffled bystanders
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Jul 05 2011
Acronyms prevent people from understanding public issues. They obstruct informed debate. They exclude most of the population from significant conversations. And they drive journalists crazy… There is nothing intrinsically wrong with acronyms. Almost all workplaces have them. Many voluntary organizations… use them… Most people have the courtesy to use them where they belong. Bureaucrats, for some reason, don’t. They assume it is incumbent on everybody else to learn their acronyms and keep track of them all.
Tags: participation
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Grassroots group takes back patients’ stories
Saturday, June 25th, 2011
Jun 25 2011
Allowing ourselves to be put under the microscope may be a necessary evil as a marginalized group trying to combat stereotypes and get disability issues into the mainstream, where they belong. In an effort to get social policy-makers to focus on us, we need to catch their attention… Now a group calling itself “a grassroots collection of individuals” is saying “Hands off our stories.” They are trying to reclaim the narrative process, reshaping it into something that is more equitable.
Tags: disabilities
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Ontario poverty rate up since last election
Sunday, June 19th, 2011
Jun 17 2011
Almost 300,000 more Ontarians sunk into poverty since the McGuinty government was elected in 2007 on a pledge to fight the problem, according to the latest Statistics Canada income data from 2009 released this week… Despite the 2008 recession that battered Ontario industries, the province’s 13.1 per cent poverty rate was still slightly below the national average of 13.3 per cent, says Ontario’s Social Planning Network. But Ontario’s 17 per cent growth in poverty since 2007 was the highest in the country…
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living, youth
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User fees are badges of dishonesty
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Jun 14 2011
Of course we howl about taxes spelled out for us on credit card receipts and tax forms. User fees are stealthy in that no one’s interested when you complain about them… But raising user fees and cutting taxes add up to the same thing… Canadians are unable to see the big picture… Witness spending cuts for the National Research Council, Environment Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development but higher spending on jails, immigration oversight, refugee appeals and courts.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
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Life in ‘Third City’: Nasty, brutish and short
Friday, June 10th, 2011
Jun 07 2011
… since the late 1980s we’ve embarked on a path that would make manifest in our urban fabric the social problems of inner-city America. We cut the social safety net; we’ve neglected the built environment of poor neighbourhoods; we’ve failed to regulate precarious employment and create “good jobs”; we’ve yet to solve high dropout rates and youth unemployment, disproportionately impacting racialized youth; and we’ve rolled back equity initiatives that acknowledged the ways socio-economic outcomes continue to be shaped by race.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, multiculturalism, poverty, standard of living
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Meet the average Tory, New Democrat and Liberal voter
Friday, June 10th, 2011
Jun. 06, 2011
If you live in a Conservative riding, you are probably richer than the average Canadian and an anglophone. If a New Democrat is your MP, you are probably a francophone in Quebec. And if your riding voted Liberal on May 2nd, there is a good chance that you are a visible minority and/or university educated. These are the results of an analysis of the average demographic profile of ridings held by the three main federal parties…
Tags: ideology, participation
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