Archive for the ‘Social Security Debates’ Category
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Great pension crisis becomes forgotten issue
Friday, May 27th, 2011
May 26 2011
It’s time for baby boomers to wake up… Approximately half of them — middle income earners in particular — will experience a substantial drop in their standard of living when they retire. What’s more, Wolfson says, none of the proposals floated since the 2008 recession would provide much relief. “Governments will have to look at more ambitious and novel reforms than the ones currently under consideration”… Middle-class baby boomers have the most to lose.
Tags: ideology, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Majority government, majority social policy
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
May 21, 2011
Tax relief usually is welcome when people actually have the financial resources in the first place (employment or investment income, private pensions, retirement savings and other assets) to keep more of their money in their pockets. For the many lowincome seniors, and nonseniors alike in Canada, additional tax relief is immaterial to improving their income security. The GIS increase announced in March means that most seniors who receive the maximum benefit are still living far below the poverty line.
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions, poverty
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The centre cannot hold
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
May 03 2011
A core truth about contemporary politics is that a good many Canadians are fully prepared to see the welfare state significantly reduced. So we are back to old-style, left-right politics. Our debates are going to be a lot more impassioned, and angrier, than they’ve been in years. It’ll be less nice, even less Canadian. But it will be more real.
Tags: ideology, participation
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Advocate wants election campaign to address poverty
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
April 11, 2011
Strong social programs will go a long way to improving health among Canadians and they cannot be achieved by cutting taxes, says Mary Boyd of the MacKillop Centre for Social Justice…. a proposal to cut corporate taxes causes us great concern because Canada needs that revenue for its social programs. We really want strong social programs funded by the federal government. Tax cuts are not the way to go about that… that’s the least effect way to create jobs, to help low income people who are in need and to take care of our universal health care system.”
Tags: Health, housing, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Here’s $5.92 — make it last a month
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Apr 05 2011
… an individual who is now living on $592 a month — $368 for shelter, $224 for everything else — will get $597.92, starting in November. That is 61 per cent below the poverty line set by the National Council of Welfare. A single mother raising a child will get an additional $10.14 a month, bringing her welfare cheque up to $1,024. That falls 45 per cent below the poverty line. And this is a province with an official poverty reduction plan; with a premier who challenged Ontarians in his last election campaign to “show that we care about one another…
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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400,000 rely on food banks each month in Ontario
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Mar 22 2011
Food bank use has grown by an unprecedented 28 per cent since the recession in 2008, making Ontario the third highest user of food bank services in Canada behind Newfoundland and Manitoba… Single adults on welfare… now make up the largest group of food bank users, according to the report, entitled “Running on Empty: A Decade of Hunger in Ontario.” Single adults account for 38 per cent of users, up from just 26 per cent in 2002, says the report which is based on statistics collected in March last year.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty
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Prisons or poverty? The choice is clear
Thursday, March 17th, 2011
Mar. 15, 2011
Since 2006, the Harper Government has drained its own coffers. After taking office, it cut the GST by two percentage points, creating an annual revenue loss of $12-billion. It trimmed corporate taxes, from 18 to 16.5%, effective 2011… Yet the government somehow manages to find money for its favourite expenditures: War and crime… The Harper Government should use the 2011-12 budget to tackle Canada’s real challenges related to poverty and inequality, literacy and educational attainment. Any new federal spending should invest in people, not prisons.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, disabilities, featured, ideology, Indigenous, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Liberals urged to ‘put food in the budget’
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Mar 10 2011
Back in 1995, the opposition Liberals scorned the Mike Harris government’s so-called “welfare diet,” which purported to show that a single person on social assistance could eat for $90 a month. Today that meagre Tory shopping list — which included pasta but no sauce and bread but no butter — costs $48 more. And yet since the Liberals took office in 2003, a single able-bodied person on welfare gets just $29 more in their monthly cheque for food. “It’s no wonder food bank use in Ontario is soaring,”
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Why do Ontarians have to beg for food?
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
Mar 09 2011
… the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition… includes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Evangelical Christians, Mennonites, Quakers, Roman Catholics, [Anglicans], Lutherans, Presbyterians and the United Church. Its central message is: “When anyone is hungry while others have too much to eat, when anyone has no shelter while others enjoy affluence, the quality of all our lives and communities disappears.”… If Duncan disregards its call to conscience, the church will mobilize its members in more communities and enlist other Ontarians who care about hunger but haven’t spoken out.
Tags: featured, ideology, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Harper government won’t act on anti-poverty plan
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Mar 07 2011
The federal government has no plans to act on an exhaustive House of Commons plan to fight poverty. The Commons human resources committee took three years to assemble 58 recommendations that would have given Ottawa a key role in efforts to help the poor. The report called for a new federal transfer payment to complement provincial anti-poverty programs. It also pushed for a national housing strategy.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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