Archive for the ‘Social Security Debates’ Category
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Liberals eye hard-hearted fraud policy
Friday, August 12th, 2011
August 12, 2011
… welfare fraud, although “characterized as pervasive,” was actually “exceptionally low”… In 2001-02, the waning years of the PC government, convictions represented roughly 0.1% of the social assistance caseload… “Simply being on social assistance results in one being positioned as a penal object in a climate of moral condemnation, surveillance, suspicion and penalty. This criminalization is particularly gendered in that the majority of people on social assistance are women, and the majority of them are single parents.”
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Canadians must try to understand what it means to be poor
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
August 10, 2011
Knowing something –such as that many Canadians are poor –is one thing. Understanding the significance of being poor is quite another. If you can’t picture the suffering, you aren’t going to appreciate the imperative to help… the demeaning grind of poverty looks very different than it did in 18th century France, but poverty remains dispiriting and painful… how do we get to the point that the suffering around us caused by poverty becomes intolerable and we insist upon action? Our failure to reach that level of motivation is even more disconcerting now that the gap between rich and poor is growing…
Tags: Health, ideology, mental Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
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A better way to pay
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Aug 09 2011
It is rare that administrative savings and the best interests of welfare recipients go hand in hand. Getting rid of paper cheques, which are increasingly expensive to administer, will save the city at least $1 million a year… For the some 35,000 welfare recipients who can’t get bank accounts, it will mean a welcome end to paying high cheque-cashing fees… Ultimately, the biggest problem with welfare is not the cheque itself but the sum, which is too low to live on with any dignity, and the punitive, rules-bound system that impedes a recipient’s transition to the workforce and self-sufficiency.
Tags: ideology, poverty, tax
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No answers for those without pensions
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
Aug 2, 2011
Labour’s proposal to double CCP benefits would ensure adequate income in retirement for all working Canadians and could be phased in gradually at a modest increase in premiums. CPP premiums are not a payroll tax, and the CFIB’s continued portrayal of them as a tax is disingenuous. These premiums fund a secure pension system that is cost-efficient, well run, and the envy of many countries. Over 70% of Canadians surveyed support our proposed gradual increase to CPP contributions.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, rights, standard of living
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Harper could make better pensions a legacy
Monday, August 1st, 2011
July 30, 2011
The present system, especially RRSPs, disproportionately helps those with good, steady incomes… A more generously funded public system could cushion the most vulnerable and ease the retirement of the middle class, while offering low overhead, the benefits of shared risk and relatively small increases in individual contributions… despite opposition, and the potential election of Tim Hudak, a Harris clone, as premier of Ontario, a determined prime minister, with skill, nerve and public support could at least launch incremental improvements to a vital social program.
Tags: ideology, participation, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Food bank fight
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
Jul. 27, 2011
We’re actually fighting the same fight, looking for solutions to the same problems and educating people about the complex issues around poverty in Canada. Yet the idea that a non-profit by its very existence must be covering up the problem that it seeks to solve is ridiculous. In any event, it is hardly a battle one would want to have on the backs of those who are going hungry. Even close to three years after the recession, we still have over a million visits to food banks across the GTA. They cannot be fed by ideology and hyperbole.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Hunger a real concern for too many Canadians
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
July 26, 2011
Hunger and poverty are not winter problems. They aren’t Thanksgiving and Christmas problems. Yet Canadians are more inclined to dig into their pockets and help the needy at holiday and festive times of the year. Perhaps that’s for no other reason than it helps push some of the guilt to the background… As Canadians, we are blessed with an abundance of agriculture, fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy and grain. Still, more than five million Canadians find themselves standing on the outside and looking in…
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Eradicating poverty is attainable
Monday, July 25th, 2011
July 25, 2011
Researchers at the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that maintaining this system of poverty rather than eradicating it costs the province from five per cent to seven per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually. What other issue, taking such a chunk of revenues, would be treated with such indifference? Would there not be an outcry if these figures applied to other sectors? And what about the human cost to health and the suffering caused by social exclusion?
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Sour taste in ‘sweet’ Tory pension plan
Friday, July 22nd, 2011
Jul 21 2011
…Menzies is now promoting is a voluntary, privately administered scheme for companies without a pension plan, their employees and self-employed workers… Sixty per cent of Canadian workers — 75 per cent in the private sector — have no pension. But it won’t protect workers’ savings from market turbulence nor will it provide post-retirement security. There is no guarantee that any of these pooled pension plans will be large enough to be sustainable…. It is certainly better than nothing. But it is a second-best solution and a poor substitute for strengthening the Canada Pension Plan
Tags: ideology, pensions, privatization, standard of living
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Poverty comes with a high price
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
July 16, 2011
The government’s approach to poverty is to deal with negative consequences as they arise… like a leaky roof, poverty’s consequences only get harder and more expensive to fix the more we put off dealing with them. Governments often balk at the high costs of policies that would effectively reduce poverty, such as building more social housing, increasing welfare rates and funding high-quality public early learning programs for all children. This kind of thinking assumes that sticking to the status quo… is free. This is not true, as our study demonstrates.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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