Archive for the ‘Inclusion Debates’ Category
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Divisive [multiculturalism]
Monday, February 14th, 2011
February 13, 2011
The forces at work have become sadly centrifugal, as we desperately search for a sense of national community and purpose, against a domestic background of creating growing numbers of internal solitudes… Ottawa’s brand of multiculturalism has merely contributed to the kind of “multi-identity-ism” that has turned all of us, myself as an immigrant included, into a nation of hyphenated Canadians. Canada’s journey to nationhood must be based on that deeper sense of diversity from which, fed by a multitude of tributaries, flows a new, distinctive and enriched national stream.
Tags: ideology, immigration, multiculturalism, participation
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Disability tax credit: Probe highlights need for review
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
Feb 12 2011
The province should crack down on any company that takes advantage of people or misleads them into believing they need to pay a private company to get a public benefit. Indeed, MPs routinely help people fill out these and other tax benefit forms for free… The revenue agency should review its own procedures and look out for companies that may be pushing exaggerated disability claims. But it must do that without making it harder for those with legitimate claims to get or keep their benefits.
Tags: disabilities, ideology, participation, tax
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 1 Comment »
Billions of dollars in benefits unclaimed by Canadians, report says
Friday, February 11th, 2011
February 9, 2011
A research report [prepared for the federal task force on financial literacy] examined why some government programs have such poor “take-up” rates. Those rates are considered an important measure of financial literacy. The report concluded that language and poverty often present barriers, particularly when the programs or application forms are complex… government should simplify its programs and application forms to ensure more Canadians benefit from the financial support to which they’re entitled. The recommendation is one of 30 in the report, “Canadians and their Money”,
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, rights, standard of living
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A new kind of revolution
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Feb. 10, 2011
Internet innovations such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter radically lower the cost and effort of collaboration. Social media are a game changer because they greatly facilitate citizens’ ability to organize despite censorship. They speed up the metabolism of dissatisfaction, enabling peers to come together to produce leaderless but nevertheless powerful movements for change… Could the first revolution born through peer collaboration lead to a new kind of collaborative government that engages its citizens in co-creating public value, democracy and social justice?
Tags: ideology, participation
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Multicultural hogwash
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
February 9, 2011
Canada is now a multiracial, multi-ethnic society of disparate, segregated communities. This so-called Canadian multiculturalism may ultimately lead to a crisis similar to the one facing Britain and Germany where Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor Angela Merkel have been honest enough to admit the failure of this policy… True, Canada may not have one large monolithic immigrant group… but it has its multiple monolithic enclaves that are getting bigger by the year with the influx of new entrants… the way to address the issue is to rejig immigration policies
Tags: ideology, immigration, multiculturalism, participation
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Elections Canada takes aim at disengaged young Canadians
Friday, February 4th, 2011
January 29, 2011
Elections Canada is commissioning a major new national survey as it searches for new ways to encourage disengaged young Canadians to vote… the project will survey 2,500 people between the ages of 18 and 34 who are disabled, unemployed or aboriginal, live in rural areas, or speak neither English nor French as a first language. It’s all part of a “youth research action plan” Elections Canada hopes will help it reach out to a segment of the population that’s increasingly tuning out electoral politics.
Tags: ideology, participation, youth
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 2 Comments »
Ethical Consumption [citizen participation]
Friday, February 4th, 2011
January 26, 2011
Martin Turcotte of Statistics Canada explores consumers’ propensity to choose or boycott products based on ethical criteria. The study compares the evolution of citizens’ ethical consumption to other types of political participation and provides information on the persons most likely to base their purchases on ethical considerations…
Tags: economy, ideology, participation
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Ontario urged to eliminate OHIP wait
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Feb 03 2011
…advocates for immigrants are calling on the province to eliminate the three-month wait time for newcomers to access OHIP. The Right to Health Care Coalition, a network of more than 30 Greater Toronto agencies, will launch a “postcard campaign” Friday to put the issue on the electorate’s radar… The policy, said to save Ontario $90 million a year, also serves as a “disincentive to persons moving to Ontario only briefly for the purpose of getting free medical services” …Ontario and British Columbia [are] the only provinces with such restrictions in place.
Tags: budget, immigration, mental Health, participation
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The shape of politics in Toronto now [exclusion]
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
Feb 02 2011
What does a politician gain who spreads fear among the powerless, and who forces the poor to beg? What is the opposite of admiration? …Did the mayor and the chair of the TTC not know that there were elderly women riding the bus in off-peak hours, along with the poor, the deaf-blind, the disabled, and those who work shift? …the children who attend Park Lane didn’t actually know that they were threatened, because they are severely developmentally disabled… Why do they need the bus? … for life skills training…
Tags: budget, disabilities, ideology, mental Health, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Low literacy levels affect everyone
Friday, January 28th, 2011
January 27, 2011
Many people can read, but do not feel confident in filling out forms like income-tax returns or applications for government benefits, cannot manage a chequing account or understand how much a credit-card debt is costing them… Many people can read, but do not understand medical terminology used by their physicians or pharmacists, or are unable to find the right place in a hospital, fill out medical and insurance forms and communicate with health-care providers. Lacking health literacy costs both the individual and the health-care system.
Tags: disabilities, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 1 Comment »
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