Archive for the ‘Inclusion Debates’ Category
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‘Green’ initiatives skewed toward wealthy
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Dec 13 2010
Only the rich can be green. They can afford to re-insulate their houses, upgrade their windows, buy point-of-use water heaters, install heat exchangers, heat pumps, and ground source heat engines. They can afford to drive hybrid, and electric, automobiles. Most importantly, they can afford to install rooftop solar panels. Over the 20-year contract, they can make a profit of about $150,000, paid by our taxes, and the owner keeps the hardware… The net result is that the poor suffer the impact of rising green energy costs…
Tags: economy, standard of living, tax
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Four ideas for a better Canada and a better world
Saturday, December 11th, 2010
December 11, 2010
… imprisonment is an insane, archaic and self-defeating treatment of non-violent offenders… Apart from those with a propensity to violence, and those who have committed other crimes on a Madoff-scale, felons should receive a government insurance bond for their employers, and contribute work to society pro bono… and treatment for substance abuse. Recidivists would have to be confined, but in prison or workshop facilities. Disused prison facilities could then be spruced up and reconfigured as housing for the indigent.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, immigration
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What religion can learn from the social sciences [human rights/social justice]
Friday, December 10th, 2010
Dec 10 2010
… in the 1960s when Latin American theologians turned to the social sciences, including Marxist analysis, to understand the roots of historic, institutionalized poverty and oppression, their critics were powerful and plentiful… These liberation theologians were accused of “reducing” the Gospel to a political message… No religion is an island. All are in need of dialogue with other cultural, spiritual and intellectual traditions to help them “awaken” to the “signs of the times,” including human rights abuses.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Happiness is …
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Dec. 7, 2010
Government policy is not about raising individual happiness in a paternalistic way, but to improve the livability of citizens’ environment, notably living conditions conducive to earned success and human flourishing. Whatever Canadian happiness index we use, choosing between fixing the state of a miserable minority, versus maintaining a satisfied majority, will always be a difficult public dilemma.
Tags: ideology, mental Health, standard of living
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If you’re happy and you know it, vote for me
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Dec. 06, 2010
Does the term “good life” mean different things to different people? And then there’s the tricky question of whether perfect stability, happiness and predictability are hindrances to progress as a society. Don’t you have to be uncomfortable or dissatisfied in order to make positive change? “We’re a long way off from having a framework for guiding public policy”… The British happiness initiative can be seen as taking a stab at creating such a framework.
Tags: ideology, participation, standard of living
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Push is on for national housing policy
Monday, December 6th, 2010
Dec 04 2010
Surely we’ve reached the tipping point. It’s time to act… Bill C-304, a private member’s bill introduced by MP Libby Davies (Vancouver East)… calls for “a national housing strategy to ensure that the cost of housing in Canada does not prevent individuals and families from meeting other basic needs, including food, clothing and access to education.” To attend or endorse the meeting, email Yutaka Dirks at dirksy@lao.on.ca.
Tags: disabilities, homelessness, housing, participation, poverty, standard of living
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A flurry of announcements but little content
Monday, December 6th, 2010
Dec 06 2010
… Welfare rates were still below the poverty line. Healthy food was still out of reach. Affordable housing was still a dream. The 1.6 million Ontarians living in poverty had to settle for an 18-month study of social assistance, a slight loosening of the rent rules for subsidized housing and an extensive list of the good things Premier Dalton McGuinty had done for them… for all the paper his government had churned out and all the announcements his ministers had made, McGuinty had very little to say about reducing poverty.
Tags: budget, homelessness, poverty, standard of living
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Province streamlines social housing strategy
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
Dec. 1, 2010
“We look forward to… begin to consolidate housing and homelessness programs, so as to better serve Ontarians…” said David Rennie, the president of the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association… Local reaction, though, wasn’t as enthusiastic… “Our housing programs are so disjointed that it takes a lot of energy to ferret out what anything means,”…The provincial share of affordable housing operating funding was $169 million in the last fiscal year, which is down 14 per cent from 2003. The impact of inflation over the last seven years decreases the funding value even more”…
Tags: budget, housing, poverty, standard of living
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Ontario housing strategy: Won’t reduce long wait lists
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Nov 30 2010
Claiming it needed “the time to get it right,” the Liberal government at Queen’s Park long delayed releasing a long-term affordable housing strategy. That’s what makes what was released Monday – three years after it was first promised in the 2007 election campaign – all the more disappointing. The housing strategy is little more than a series of regulatory changes that reduce red tape, simplify convoluted rules and provide municipalities more flexibility to cater to local needs
Tags: homelessness, housing, poverty, standard of living
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How complex the culture of fear [immigration]
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
November 26, 2010
… a culture of fear isn’t merely one in which the natives fear the immigrants. It’s one in which people of all backgrounds fear being branded for their sincere worries about whether unity can be extracted from diversity. After all, if you don’t know who you are, to what are you asking newcomers to adapt? … “The worst thing that can happen to a country is not conflicts – they are unavoidable – but the failure to discuss those conflicts constructively and honestly”
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation
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