Archive for the ‘Inclusion Debates’ Category
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Get politically active, get happy
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
May 19, 2010
Activism fulfills human needs on several levels. According to the study, which was published in the journal Political Psychology, it satisfies one’s eudaimonic needs – the need for a sense of meaning and purpose to life. More superficially, it fulfills the hedonic need to feel pleasure. Prof. Kasser says activism “does a fairly good job” at satisfying the four psychological needs that must be met for a person to be happy: autonomy, competence, security and connection to others.
Tags: participation, standard of living
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Kids learn power and pleasure of giving
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
May 18 2010
The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) is now it in sixth year. It has touched the lives of 35,000 teenagers. Here is how it works. The Toskan Casale Foundation offers to provide a school with a $5,000 grant, to be awarded by a Grade 9 or 10 class to the charity of its choice. But the students have to earn the money. They have to learn about the charity, meet the people who run it and talk to its clients. Then the class has to make a presentation, explaining why it deserves the grant. Meanwhile, other classes are doing the same thing. The presentations are judged by a panel of students, parents, public officials and community activists. The winning class gets to present the cheque to the charity it championed… So far, the foundation has given away $4 million.
Tags: featured, participation, standard of living
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Housing shortage tiptoes onto political agenda
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
May 12 2010
It would take a minor miracle for Parliament to pass a private member’s bill calling for “secure, adequate and affordable housing for Canadians.” But faith, hope and the prospect of a miracle are what sustain the churches, unions, municipalities, community groups, social agencies and anti-poverty activists who have been fighting for a national housing strategy for 20 years… It’s a long shot, but anything can happen in a minority Parliament.
Tags: housing, poverty, standard of living
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How Canada’s Christian right was built
Monday, May 10th, 2010
May 07 2010
…the movement focuses on taking over the “gateways of influence,” one of the portals within its sights is the mainstream media itself. Where once social conservatives regarded the fourth estate as hostile territory from which they had been sidelined, now the heads of religious-right think tanks… have become regular spinmeisters for the social conservative point of view… Aggressive and insistent, they are driven by a fierce imperative to reconstruct Canada in a biblical mould. …their agenda—while outwardly inclusive and multi-racial — is ultimately exclusionary.
Tags: ideology
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Disability case headed to court [interactive web technology]
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
May 8, 2010
Ottawa says: “Canada is committed to making federal government websites accessible to the broadest audience possible, including for the visually impaired. To give effect to this commitment, the Treasury Board adopted internationally recognized web accessibility standards through the Common Look and Feel Standards for the Internet in May of 2000.” Sounds good on paper but Treviranus says the way the Common Look and Feel Standards are written make them counterproductive when it come to designing interactive websites accessible to Canadians who are blind.
Tags: disabilities, participation
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Unkind cut for disabled
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
May 06 2010
Ontario cut $22 million that had been expected by some 380 organizations supporting people with developmental disabilities. The sector was not specifically targeted, but it fell victim to the broad austerity program introduced by the provincial government to reduce the provincial deficit. …it makes little sense to fund planning for a fairer and more sustainable system in the future while throwing the same organizations into a budgetary crisis today.
Tags: disabilities, participation, standard of living
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A land of well-paid workers and willing taxpayers
Friday, April 30th, 2010
Apr 30 2010
The most memorable scene in Poor No More, a documentary that premiered this week in Toronto, takes place on the shop floor of a large truck manufacturer in Sweden. A female employee, talking while she works, says it’s “okay to pay taxes because our system takes care of all the people.” She explains that if she became sick or had an accident, she would get 80 per cent of her wages. Like all Swedes, she is entitled to subsidized child care, elder care, high-quality health care and 10 days of parental leave a year.
Tags: participation, standard of living
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Alexandra Park slated for revitalization
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
Apr. 23, 2010
As part of a dramatic plan that will revitalize the decrepit environs of Alexandra Park, Toronto Community Housing is proposing to turn the 1960s-era housing project into a mixed-income community through which Augusta would extend. In what is a Canadian first, the TCHC will use revenue from newly constructed condos to cover the full cost of new rental units for social-housing tenants.
Tags: housing, standard of living
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Last frontier of legal prejudice [mental & other disabilities]
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
Apr 24 2010
Today, although racism and anti-Semitism still exist, most Ontarians find these forms of bigotry abhorrent and are embarrassed that the law of the land once permitted them in the interest of “preserving the character” of local neighbourhoods. Yet in 2010, there is still one form of prejudice that remains perfectly legal — zoning bylaws that target people with mental and other disabilities… armed with the facts, most people will view discrimination against people with mental illness equally as repugnant as they do bigotry against other groups.
Tags: featured, mental Health, participation, rights
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Ontario seeks bigger bang for charities
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
Apr 22 2010
“We want to build, develop, and enhance the not-for-profit sector by reviewing the structure and legislative framework,” a senior government official said Wednesday… to better coordinate the efforts between government and the various organizations… Trillium chair Helen Burstyn noted… “As a percentage of (gross domestic product), Canada’s not-for-profit sector is the second largest in the world, behind only the Netherlands”.
Tags: economy, participation, standard of living
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