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Auditor-General fires parting shots on climate change, native policy
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
May. 25, 2011
Ms. Fraser also noted that in the last decade her office has produced 31 audit reports on aboriginal issues, yet “too many first nations people still lack what most other Canadians take for granted.” She called the lack of improvement in living conditions “truly shocking.” “In a wealthy country like Canada, this is simply unacceptable.”
Tags: budget, economy, Health, Indigenous, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Newfoundland has a lesson for Canada on globalization
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
May 20, 2011
Vale’s “home country” has few regulations, weak enforcement of those regulations and negligible labour rights. The concept of stakeholders does not exist in its strategic decision-making. What Vale chooses to do, Vale does… In contrast, Canada’s institutions, regulations and laws were built on an approach that seeks to balance rights and responsibilities, from the most powerful to the most vulnerable… The Vale example is a wake-up call: We can let globalization shape us, or we can shape globalization.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Why did all the West’s big centrist parties go down the drain?
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
May. 21, 2011
For decades, they were the untouchable monoliths of politics: The big nation-wide parties that straddled the centre ground, leaning slightly to the left or right, capturing big swathes of votes across the spectrum, forming the lion’s share of national governments during the half-dozen decades after the Second World War… Suddenly, they are falling apart, their gradual seepage of voter support during the past 10 or 15 years exploding into sudden ballot embolisms.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Unhealthy neighbourhoods play big role in obesity, diabetes epidemic
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
May. 17, 2011
There is a worldwide epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Canada’s two million cases of diabetes are expected to double over the next decade, according to a 2008 report from the Canadian Diabetes Association. Three times as many young teenagers are overweight now as there were 25 years ago… People who live in the northern, unwalkable fringes of low-income Toronto… will live about 20 fewer years than those in downtown, vibrant neighbourhoods
Tags: Health, housing, immigration, participation, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Spine surgery can become much more efficient
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
May. 15, 2011
About 90 per cent of back- and neck-pain patients sent to spine surgeons don’t have a medical condition that can be corrected through an operation… The waste manifested in hospitals across Canada illustrates a central flaw in how health services are organized: around those who provide treatment, not those who require it. Patient-centred care is just a slogan, not a reality… Under the proposal… Physiotherapists, chiropractors and other health-care providers working in 15 spine-assessment centres would weed out those patients who are surgical candidates…
Tags: budget, Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Is the government party over?
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
May. 16, 2011
What were the traditional roots of Liberal dominance? A solid block of seats from Quebec gave them a regular grip on majority governments… [their] stand as the defender of a strong federal government and a Canadian nationalism closely tied to the national state… As a classic centrist brokerage party, they were able to adapt, chameleon-like, to the challenges of change in the economy and society… With the apparent demise of the government party model, the question is whether the Liberal Party has any role left to play.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Bell’s $10-million donation hailed as mental-health game-changer
Sunday, May 15th, 2011
May. 12, 2011
CAMH is in the midst of a massive redevelopment that is transforming its archaic facilities on Queen Street in Toronto into a modern campus where clinicians, researchers and educators will work side-by-side with patients in a supportive environment… The new corporate gift will pay for the Bell Gateway Building that will serve as the “front door” to the new campus. George Cope, president and CEO of Bell and BCE Inc., said he hopes the large and visible donation will encourage others to follow suit. “We felt this was an area where we could use our brand to make a difference.”
Tags: budget, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
When a university degree just isn’t enough
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011
May. 09, 2011
While undergraduate enrolments shot up 40 per cent, faculty levels rose only 25 per cent… Annual statistics from the Canadian Association of University Teachers show there were 23.1 students per professor in 2007-2008, compared with fewer than 17 in 1990-91. Universities have allowed these ratios to swell in step with growing costs of salaries, infrastructure and research in order to balance budgets – up to a point, teaching more students with the same faculty members boosts general revenues.
Tags: budget, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Canada’s new electoral divide: It’s about the money
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
May. 04, 2011
With Canada still shaking off the effects of the recession, the Conservatives were clearly looking to herd economically worried voters into their column at the start of the campaign. The party was aiming not just at the haves, looking to safeguard their affluence, but at the just-hads, aching to reclaim their recently lost prosperity… the rise of the NDP, which siphoned off progressive-minded Liberals, clearly spooked a sizable number of blue Liberals, causing them to bolt to Mr. Harper in the last weekend of campaigning…
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
How paying people’s way out of poverty can help us all
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
May. 06, 2011
… there’s an increasing awareness, among even the country’s most wealthy, that poverty reaches beyond the tables of the hungry and digs into their own pocketbooks. When people are poor, out of work or homeless, it hurts the bottom line of all Canadians… the country is becoming economically polarized. And the decades-old dominant economic dogma that growing wealth among society’s highest earners would trickle down to those less fortunate is being challenged by an alternative approach: Eliminate crushing poverty among the lowest earners, and wealth will trickle up.
Tags: featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | 4 Comments »
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