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Corporate giving coming with more strings attached
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
Oct. 29, 2011
Canadian charities are in a double bind: As donations from the business community decline, the biggest corporations are also becoming more strategic about their giving. Faced with an ever-increasing swell of requests, companies have raised the bar for funding in recent years by focusing on causes that are linked to their business goals or the promotion of their brands. Many would rather sponsor specific projects than write a cheque to pay for a charity’s general operations.
Tags: budget, ideology, philanthropy
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Harper quells unrest in Tory ranks to juggle seats in House
Friday, October 28th, 2011
Oct. 28, 2011
The bill, the Tories’ third attempt to re-jig the House, may have hit the sweet spot, with opposition parties offering grudging – and two provinces outright – support… At the Monday caucus meeting, Mr. Harper made his case: A version of the bill that died with the last Parliament would have left Quebec underrepresented. No province, he said, should be punished to improve the lot of others. The final bill, he added, was based on the latest population projections…
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
New seats rebalance the House of Commons
Friday, October 28th, 2011
Oct. 27, 2011
New Seats: 30 new seats over four provinces will be added to the House of Commons making a total of 338 seats, including 3 seats in the territories. [Infographic]
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
The big questions raised by anti-capitalist protests
Friday, October 28th, 2011
October 28, 2011
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the ideology was socialism and the force was organized labour. Socialism failed as a way of running economies. It did, however, succeed in establishing welfare states… If the traditional left offers no answer, can the free market right return to business as usual? No. People who believe in the marriage of democratic politics with market economics need to address what has happened… Market capitalism creates inherent difficulties. The two most obvious are macroeconomic instability and extremes of inequality… Any inequality is corrosive if those with wealth are believed to have rigged the game rather than won in honest competition.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Ottawa looks at rewriting rules on charitable giving
Friday, October 28th, 2011
Oct. 28, 2011
Ottawa is conducting a sweeping overhaul of the way it finances charities and non-profit organizations, pledging a new era of accountability in which businesses and citizens shoulder more of the cost of giving… financing will come with more strings attached in an effort to ensure that organizations deliver promised social gains. While the first steps will be small, the government’s ultimate goal is a shift in public expectations as to the role of government in assisting social causes.
Tags: ideology, philanthropy
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Higher taxation is back on the table
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Oct. 25, 2011
Social justice is not a phrase to which modern-day Conservatives are winsomely attracted. But they might do well to pay heed. Both here and abroad, the climate is changing… The Milton Friedman foundation, from which the past three decades of economics have taken their cue, is on shaky ground… the long run of wreckage being witnessed now may result in another great turn… Canadians have a history, until recently at least, of accepting higher taxation levels as the price for a more just and egalitarian society.
Tags: featured, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
IQ level changes over the years: study
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Oct. 20, 2011
a new study suggests that IQ levels may actually change over time – rising in some and falling in others… It’s possible the change in scores is due to some kids being early or late bloomers… But it is also possible that education played a role in altering IQ… “We have to be careful not to write off poorer performers at an early stage when, in fact, their IQ may improve significantly given a few more years.”
Tags: standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
Harper’s crime bill needs cost-effective prevention
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Oct. 24, 2011
Parliament should add a Crime Reduction Board to the government’s omnibus crime bill… Public Safety Canada provides a website with examples of effective precrime prevention programs that have stopped crime before citizens became victims, but these are not yet being used from coast to coast… If the federal government matched every additional dollar for prisons with another dollar for prevention and victim rights, Canada would become one of the safest countries in the world – and cost-effectively!
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
New index pinpoints inequalities in Canadians’ quality of life
Friday, October 21st, 2011
Oct. 21, 2011
GDP has its limitations… While a robust tool, it is confined to tracking the value of goods and services traded in a month. Thus it rises when spending increases on war, oil spills or natural disasters. And it fails to capture many activities such as caring for a sick relative or volunteer work. The new index is meant to be more comprehensive, looking at housing affordability, voter turnout, life expectancy, crime, air quality and income inequality. It aims to help governments and communities design public policy and track progress.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, participation, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 2 Comments »
Universities get an F for failing undergrads
Friday, October 21st, 2011
Oct. 21, 2011
For a generation or so, universities have been powered by two drives: make themselves stronger in research, and chase money from governments that rewarded institutions for accepting more students. The results were bad for the quality of undergraduate education… More students meant bigger classes, because government funding didn’t keep pace with enrolment while professors taught fewer undergraduate classes… Governments… stuffed the students into these universities, raised their fees and sent money for new buildings, then forgot about the quality of their instruction.
Tags: budget, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
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