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Wanted: a government with the will to tackle child poverty
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
Jan. 28, 2011
Ms. Turpel-Lafond described the frustration of front-line social workers who have few tools at their disposal to improve the conditions of the families they visit, especially in aboriginal communities. The best hope they can offer for families living in wretched housing environments, for instance, is to put them on a waiting list for better accommodations, which can be 10 years long… Well, the idea isn’t to have a professional friend. A service is not visiting people. A service is taking an active role and taking preventative measures to improve the child’s situation.”
Tags: child care, Health, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Five reasons to say no to more corporate tax cuts
Friday, January 28th, 2011
January 28, 2011
Here are five economic reasons not to keep reducing the federal corporate tax rate this year or next. – Least effective job creation measure… – Little Impact on investments… – Pay more tax to cut taxes… – False economies… (and) – The question of working capital… An across-the-board general corporate income tax rate cut rewards companies whether they create jobs or kill them. The primary sector of the Canadian economy is increasingly in the hands of off-shore investors, who take the profits and jobs elsewhere. That’s global capitalism, but we don’t need to reward it.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Canada, one of the freest (markets) at last
Friday, January 28th, 2011
Jan 26, 2011
… the Heritage Foundation-Wall Street Journal’s Index of Economic Freedom 2011 says Canada has edged upward in capitalist sentiment and free-market rights in the past couple of years, thereby earning an elite ranking as a “free economy.” In the entire world, only six economies qualify (by scoring 80 points or more on a scale of 1-to-100) for this distinction: Hong Kong (89.7), Singapore (87.20), Australia (82.5), New Zealand 82.3), Switzerland (81.9) and Canada (80.8). Free at last.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Prison mental health
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
January 26, 2011
The Canadian Psychiatric Association (To Heal and Protect – Jan. 22) agrees with the warnings of Canada’s Correctional Investigator that the scarcity of treatment for mentally ill inmates is a growing crisis and that getting tough on crime by locking up more Canadians as proposed by the federal government will aggravate the problem. What is needed, are services for inmates and policies that favour early detection and treatment, preventing our citizens with mental illness from filling our prisons.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, disabilities, mental Health
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
Prisons grapple with increase in mentally ill female inmates
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
Jan. 27, 2011
Across the country, prisons are grappling with the problem of a sharp increase in mentally impaired inmates. But the issue is particularly acute with women. Female offenders are twice as likely as their male counterparts to be diagnosed with a mental-health condition when they’re admitted to prison, according to a recent report by the federal Correctional Investigator. Moreover, the number of women admitted to penitentiaries with mental problems doubled from 1997 to 2009… but the needs of the mentally ill are playing a small role in federal expansion plans.
Tags: corrections, mental Health, women
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Big spending is not the road to eHealth
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
Jan. 25, 2011
Governments are often tempted to be extravagant in capital spending, in the hope that continuing annual expenditures can be reduced… Eventually, eHealth will work well in most hospitals and most countries, but throwing too much money at it invites trouble. Patience is a virtue.
Tags: budget, Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | 1 Comment »
In Sweden, pension problems are so 1989
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
January 21, 2011
… Sweden scrapped its traditional defined benefit pension for what’s called a “notional defined contribution” plan… tied to the national per capita real wage growth… Swedes contribute 18.5 per cent of their pay to the system: 16 per cent to the NDC and 2.5 per cent to a private account where money is invested in mutual funds of their choice. The public pension is… responsible for 75 per cent of the average monthly benefit for men at 17,000 Swedish kronor ($2,562 U.S.) and women at 12,000 kronor. The rest comes from occupational pensions negotiated between companies and unions.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Attack the policies, not the person
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Jan. 21, 2011
… the ads are degrading and disgusting because they demean the personalities, backgrounds and motivations of other leaders. The ads are nasty, personal and below-the-belt. Which is what, alas, Canadians have come to expect from the Harper-led Conservative Party… When a politician so lowers the tone of discourse to impugn his opponents’ motivations and backgrounds, how does that politician expect the broad public to have any respect for the accuser, the political process and all those who work there.
Tags: participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
To heal and protect: mental illness and the justice system
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Jan. 21, 2011
Behind bars, effective treatment is rarely more than a promise while reality is a severe shortage of psychiatric professionals and a patient population so diverse it can explode if different kinds of inmate mix. The cost to society is immense… untreated prisoners often are released only to get into trouble all over again. Recent figures indicate that nearly 35 per cent of the 13,300 inmates in federal penitentiaries have a mental impairment requiring treatment – triple the estimated total as recently as 2004, and far higher than the incidence of mental illness in the general population.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, mental Health, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Abolishing political subsidies is an incomplete resolution
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Jan. 21, 201
The subsidies inaugurated… in 2003 were supposed to be a revenue-neutral replacement for corporate and union contributions, which were outlawed… But, in fact, the subsidies provide about 50 per cent more revenue to national parties than they used to receive… Parties are not investment clubs. Give them more money, and they will spend it trying to win elections. Give them less money, and they won’t be able to campaign as often. Maybe they’ll even start to co-operate with each other in Parliament to avoid elections and pass some essential legislation.
Tags: budget, participation, tax
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
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