« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Flaherty’s tax credits cost Ottawa billions
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Jan. 10, 2012
The credits featured prominently in government advertising, allowing the Conservatives to target their message toward various segments of the population…. the annual cost of the Tax Free Savings Account – announced in the 2008 budget – has grown from $65-million in lost revenue in 2009 to $220-million in 2011… the Children’s Fitness Credit and the Public Transit Tax Credit, appears to have stabilized at $115-million and $150-million respectively… “They call these things tax cuts, but in fact they’re expenditures and they’ve only gone to make the tax code look like a piece of Swiss cheese.”
Tags: budget, economy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
What would you give to be in the 1 per cent?
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Jan. 10, 2012
I can’t help notice an often ignored yet crucial aspect of the income-inequality debate: sheer sacrifice… Generally speaking, the person who works 9 or 10 hours a day lives an entirely different sort of life than someone who’s life is, essentially, work – and that’s ultimately a big reason why one is paid less, and often far less, than the other… That’s what they get paid for, unlike those who get to sleep while others handle the problem – others, more to the point, who are expected to handle the problem. Whether they handle it well or not is another story
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Religious-freedom office is a blessing, non-believers
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Jan. 09, 2012
… Canada is a secular state, meaning that, as a state, it is of no religion and enforces none. The first point underscores the ongoing need for the promotion of religious freedom. The second confirms the appropriateness of a country such as Canada undertaking it… There’s a lot of careless invocation these days of “separation of church and state.” This isn’t a Canadian doctrine, and is only very dubiously an American one… [but that] doesn’t preclude a public stand on behalf of religious freedom. On the contrary, it implies one.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, rights
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Police learn how to deal with the mentally ill in crisis
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Jan. 09, 2012
A shortage of mental-health resources in Canada has put police and the mentally ill on a collision course, with officers increasingly becoming the first point of contact for people in crisis… in… Belleville… each front-line officer attends about 40 such calls a year… those first few moments of interaction… are crucial: “If you don’t respond properly, the results can be catastrophic.”
Tags: crime prevention, Health, mental Health
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Jails don’t keep people out of jail
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Jan. 05, 2012
The fastest-growing portions of the inmate population continue to be those most marginalized within our society: the mentally ill, women and aboriginals. Decades of reports have detailed our correctional systems’ failure to reasonably address the needs of these offenders and limit their numbers… “There is almost unanimous condemnation of California-style mass incarceration, which has led to no reduction in serious crime and has turned many inmates into habitual criminals”… Our focus and our resources should be directed toward keeping people out of jail, not in it.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Pay at the top
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Jan. 05, 2012
There is no justification for anyone running a hospital to be paid two or three times more than Ontario’s Premier or even the Prime Minister (Hospitals Scrapping Executive Perks – Jan. 4). We need a law that limits public-sector salaries to those of the Premier ($200,000-plus)/Prime Minister ($300,000-plus), with the justification that everyone else’s job simply can’t be more rigorous than that of the top dog. Even at those lowered salaries, competent people would be lining up to apply. And when their over-the-top pensions kick in, taxpayers can keep paying them for many more years.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Too many sociologists? Just enough
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
Jan. 02, 2012
A liberal arts education is not an automatic guarantor of an emancipated intellect or an enlightened sensibility. You have to work at it… exposure to a tradition of learning that is not subservient to a prevailing political ideology, that is deeply humanist in its core, steeped in the writings of extraterritorial thinkers not held hostage to the orthodoxy of the moment… (can bring) down an oppressive system through… art and witness.
Tags: ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Five ways to boost Canada’s economy
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
Jan. 01, 2012
Keep Canada’s future retirees from sliding into poverty… Six leading Canadian pension experts… recently urged an expansion of the CPP… Build critical infrastructure… From crumbling bridges and choked roads to inadequate public transit, the needs outstrip available funds… Deregulate the relics of the pre-Internet economy… Low-cost competitive telecom services are a must-have… Unleash the innovation potential of Canadian companies… Canada spends 1 per cent of GDP on business R&D, compared to 1.6 per cent among wealthy countries
Tags: budget, globalization, ideology, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Be very afraid: Stephen Harper is inventing a new Canada
Sunday, January 1st, 2012
Dec. 16, 2011
It’s in the nature of true believers and ideologues to believe that any means to their sacred ends are justified. This makes them extremely dangerous people. It’s also typical of such people that they’re often motivated by unfathomable resentment and anger, a compulsion not just to better but to destroy their adversaries. These are good descriptions of Stephen Harper and those closest to him… A central tenet of the new reality is the repudiation of the need for anything as irrelevant as evidence, facts or rationality whenever they are inconvenient.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
There’s no way out but a new politics of fairness
Sunday, January 1st, 2012
Jan. 01, 2012
… this is an epochal restructuring of the global economy, the first downturn in which the developing world is gaining power, wealth and jobs at the expense of the developed… The age is crying out for a different kind of politics, one that rallies people around the idea of fighting the great fear together… Recessions at first divide, but as they persist and deepen, even the rich discover that their own prosperity will be threatened… A politics of fairness is also a politics of growth. Fair societies are more dynamic and more innovative.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments