Archive for the ‘Social Security Debates’ Category
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Commissioner calls for reform
Thursday, July 14th, 2011
July 13, 2011
Social assistance is administered through a broken system… “Tinkering won’t fix it,” said Commissioner Frances Lankin. “There’s some fundamental reform required.” Three years ago, the Ontario government announced it was embarking on a poverty reduction strategy, with a special focus on reducing child poverty. The strategy included the establishment of a review commission… “Usually, we’ve stopped at what can be done at the local level… But this is looking at the bigger picture … this will be the most important systemic change that will happen.”
Tags: budget, child care, disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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CPP benefits should be doubled: Study
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Jul. 6, 2011
If a new and mandatory national defined benefit [DB] pension plan proposed by retired Finance Department mandarin Keith Horner gets traction, CPP and QPP benefits would jump from 25% to 40% of earnings up to $48,300 and from zero to 25% on a bigger salary base of $96,600… The need is certainly there: Canadians haven’t saved enough to make up the difference… Unlike the current CPP, Mr. Horner’s plan would be fully funded, have tax-deductible contributions and reduce RRSP room for participants, as do registered pension plans…
Tags: pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Faith To End Poverty Campaign (2011 Provincial Election)
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
July 4, 2011
ISARC launched the Faith To End Poverty campaign to provide opportunities for Ontarians to advocate for poverty elimination in the upcoming provincial election. Over the next month, ISARC will be preparing lectionary materials for clergy, holding local and provincial vigils, assisting local faith groups to hold all candidate meetings, and preparing short videos for adult education discussion in local congregations and social justice groups… over a million Ontarians are hungry and/or using food banks…
Tags: budget, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Imagining a world without pensions
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Jul 03 2011
According to Statistics Canada, six out of 10 Canadians have no formal pension plan. If rates of defined-benefit coverage continue to decline, we’ll have no discernible pension coverage in the next 10 to 20 years, and will be grappling with widespread senior poverty… rather than getting rid of pension plans, we need to strengthen and expand them. A pension plan that provides meaningful replacement income is our best line of defence against widespread senior poverty.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living
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Poverty reduction does make a difference
Monday, June 27th, 2011
Jun 26 2011
Anti-poverty groups urged the provincial government to take bold steps to protect people from the economic downswing. They urged government to increase the Ontario Child Benefit, boost the minimum wage, and match federal stimulus spending. They also called on the province to raise incomes for adults living in poverty. The McGuinty government followed through on the first three steps. It also introduced full-day junior and senior kindergarten. But, crucially, it did not do anything substantial to deal with income security for adults.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Faith and poverty: A reason to believe
Friday, June 10th, 2011
Jun 10 2011
Daily they ease suffering by offering food programs for the hungry and emergency shelters for the homeless. Now, they’ve decided to take on a more difficult task: reducing the need for those acts of compassion and generosity by getting Queen’s Park to live up to its commitment to reduce poverty… The faithful are a patient lot, but time’s up. The coalition, which includes leaders from the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist faiths, is marshalling its members to make sure poverty becomes — and remains — a key issue in next fall’s provincial election.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Moving to a Poverty Free Ontario
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
07 Jun 2011
The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) plans to launch an initiative to build cross-community support for a Poverty Free Ontario by the end of this decade. Social planning councils have a long history since the 1930s of advocating for low income people, whether welfare recipients or working poor. In recent years, the SPNO and its organizational members have assumed a lead role in urging the Ontario Government to adopt a poverty reduction strategy for Ontario.
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Helping homeless also helps the giver
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011
June 6, 2011
Abuse, alcohol and drug problems, and mental disorders play a role in the lives of some homeless people, just as they do in the lives of Canadians who sleep every night in penthouse suites… Homelessness has many causes, driven primarily by a lack of affordable housing and low social assistance rates. The solutions demand a national strategy on housing and a serious commitment from government to eradicate poverty.
Tags: disabilities, homelessness, mental Health, poverty
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Welfare argument full of holes
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
Jun 04 2011
For the Conservatives, any dollar which helps the poor, the sick, the unemployed, or the children in our schools is one dollar too many. Investing in people interferes with corporate tax cuts. So where has this left us? We are now number 26 among 30 OECD nations in per-capita social spending, number 6 in the percentage of our population living in poverty, number 1 in the rate at which income disparity in increasing… We are number 20 in UNICEF’s index of maternal and infant health, dead last out of the 25 most developed nations in Save the Children’s study of child care and early childhood education.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Social councils fighting to eradicate poverty
Monday, May 30th, 2011
May 19, 2011
… the poverty line for an average single adult per year is $18,582 a year (after taxes) while the average person on Ontario Works(OW) makes about $7,352 a year… the Government should raise the income that people on OW makes but they won’t because of a dogma or stigma that those who need the system are “begging for handouts” and/or don’t wish to work. “We have to stop using demeaning language and stop referring to Social Assistance as a social and economical ghetto or broken system,” said Novick. “It’s not a broken system, it’s a degraded system.”
Tags: ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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