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The best countries for kids: Can you guess where Canada ranks?
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
25 July 2012
Japan… is the best place in the world to be a kid. In second place is Spain, followed by Germany, Italy and France. Canada comes in at No. 6, ahead of Switzerland, Norway, U.K. and the Netherlands… the study ranks how child-friendly a country is based on three factors: health, education and nutrition. It measures the number of children who are in school, the chances of a child dying before the age of five and the number of underweight children…
Tags: child care, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
The how, the why [violent crime]
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
24 July 2012
After reading Margaret Wente’s article… on last week’s mass shooting… I paused for a moment and tried to imagine life there. A page or so later, I saw a description of a $4-million home that boasts a mahogany library and an 1,100-bottle wine cellar. You know the big predictor of violent crime in a city? Income inequality.
Tags: crime prevention, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | 4 Comments »
What mirrors tell us [social violence]
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
22 July 2012
The rising number of suicides on our reserves or the escalating violence in our cities are but symptoms of a society breaking under the burden of consumerism, selfishness, glorification of violence in pop culture/media, and disintegrating ethical and spiritual values… There is no simple answer and no one cause. The reversal of this trend requires the coming together of all Canadians for a singular purpose – to purge violence from our home, our communities and our society.
Tags: crime prevention, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Tear down those mountains of cash
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
21 July 2012
… debt is not the major problem. That was four years ago. Today, a far bigger threat is… cash hoards… at least 45 per cent of Canada’s biggest companies are hoarding cash rather than investing in employment or capital. None of it is going into research and development, expansion of market share, new offices and factories or, crucially, on employing people. Nor is it going into tax revenues, since cash reserves – and some of the earnings that contribute to them – escape the taxman, giving companies an incentive to not invest.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
A university degree’s value is incontestable
Saturday, July 21st, 2012
Jul. 20 2012
In 2009… those with a bachelor’s degree had an unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent, about 2.5 points below the national rate. Those with graduate degrees were doing even better, at 4.6 per cent. By comparison, those with only a high-school degree had a jobless rate of 9.1 per cent, and those with only “some” high school faced an unemployment rate of 15.9 per cent… The income gap between those with university credentials and those without starts slowly in the first few years after graduation, but after a decade, the gap is wide and stays there.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Organized labour is now a Super PAC
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012
Jul. 16 2012
Individuals, corporations, and unions were legally limited to giving a maximum of $9,300 to Ontario political parties in 2011, whereas contributions to third-party entities were unlimited. The elementary teachers alone spent an astonishing $2.6-million on ads, almost 300 times as much as they could have given to a party… The unions also spent heavily on advertising before the election was called… only big business can raise the money to match big labour.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The long climb from inequality
Saturday, July 14th, 2012
Jul. 14 2012
The real issue is equality of opportunity – the ability of people in the lower class to move up the ladder. Equality of opportunity is what we care about the most. We want to believe that we live in a meritocratic society where everyone has an equal chance to succeed. But that is less and less the case. And the remedies are not at all obvious… It’s not that lower-class parents are paying less attention to their kids than they used to. The gap arises because educated parents are investing far more time, effort and money in their kids than ever before… Racial disparities are narrowing, but class disparities are widening dramatically.
Tags: ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Ontario universities promise funding guide amid Carleton donor backlash
Saturday, July 14th, 2012
Jul. 14 2012
Ontario’s universities are trying to assemble a toolkit to help their leaders navigate the delicate, sometimes controversial funding deals they broker with wealthy private donors… The absence of clear rules is apparent in a 2010 donor agreement whereby oil magnate Clayton Riddell pledged $15-million to Carleton to start a new political management program… with power to “approve the budget, the selection of adjunct faculty and staff, including the Executive Director and to participate in the faculty hiring decisions.”The Canadian Association of University Teachers was quick to condemn the terms.
Tags: budget, ideology, privatization, rights
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Physician, restrain thyself
Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
Jul. 11 2012
From 1998 to 2008, physician compensation grew faster than the price of other services purchased by governments, and faster than the average wages of other groups in the health and social services sector… In Ontario… remuneration went up sharply as the government tried to entice family practitioners to group themselves in teams and offered incentives for this change. It was inevitable that these very generous increases could not continue.
Posted in Health Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Ontario’s doctors should be at the negotiating table, not in the courtroom
Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
Jul. 10 2012.
Ontario is expected to be in the red until at least 2017, and doctors’ fees account for roughly 10 per cent of the province’s total program spending. So this spring’s cost-cutting measures, targeted heavily at a few specialist groups, were only the first round. If the OMA were to adopt a more constructive approach and return to the table, it could at least help shape future funding decisions… those who benefited from generous settlements in the past need to accept new realities, and make the best of them. Lawyering up is not the answer.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
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