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India is showing Canada the way with action on health care
Tuesday, July 10th, 2012
Jul. 09 2012
Canada has been talking about national pharmacare for decades. There has been little action and an endless litany of excuses, foremost that the constitutional division of powers is an impediment. It’s hard to imagine that our constitutional quirks are harder to overcome than the complex regional, religious and political divisions in India. Yet India is forging ahead with fundamental health reform to ensure a healthy population and a healthier economy, while Canada continues to futz around.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Innovation in health care critical in times of austerity
Tuesday, July 10th, 2012
Jul. 09 2012
Canada is the fifth highest spender of health as a share of its gross domestic product [11.4 per cent in 2010] and seventh highest on health expenditures per capita [$4,445 U.S. in 2010] – both higher than the OECD average of 34 member countries. And yet for all that money, there are still troubling access issues… The system’s 1950s acute-care model is not equipped to deal with the burgeoning group of aging patients whose multiple chronic conditions demand comprehensive care, not repeated physician visits in a fragmented system.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Corporations behave badly – and we pay
Friday, July 6th, 2012
Jul. 05 2012
Once upon a time, banks and drug companies enjoyed good reputations and a relatively high degree of trust. Most people regarded them as useful industries that created products and services that benefited society… Today these industries are movie villains – multibillion-dollar enterprises portrayed as so rapacious they’ll do anything to turn a buck. Judging by current events, this characterization is all too true. Some of the most powerful people in these lines of work will lie, cheat and steal until they get caught, all the while assuring us that they are adding incomparable value to society.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The debate over the state is getting stale
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
Jun. 29 2012
… slower growth and higher deficits raise the question for many whether the state is a friend or enemy of more growth and deficit-reduction… The two prescriptions – left and right – leave large unanswered questions. The left is so worried about today’s economic frailties that it remains unclear when and how even larger government deficits would be ever paid down, as eventually they must. And the right is so fixated on the ills caused by government that it remains apparently oblivious to the short-term hurt its restrictive policies are having – or would have – on growth, jobs and recovery.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Crime, victim
Friday, June 29th, 2012
June 29, 2012
Research by the Centre for Race and Culture indicates that immigrants and non-white people (racialized) do not commit more crime than mainstream Canadians with similar life circumstances… Crime is higher for those who are unemployed, have low levels of education, come from single parent families, or live in poverty. These are all exacerbated by the discrimination that immigrant, refugee, and aboriginal people experience. Why do racialized people consistently receive a lower quality of education, and have a more difficult time finding employment and income levels that are commensurate with their education and experience?
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, immigration, Indigenous, multiculturalism, poverty
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Our research universities can leap ahead
Monday, June 25th, 2012
Jun. 25 2012
To fully leverage our current investments and enhance our competitiveness, I present four lessons for Canada, drawing on the work of the NRC committee: Commit to stable, effective funding for university-performed research and development… Reduce regulatory burdens and increase accountability… Enhance graduate education… Strengthen partnerships with all innovation stakeholders. Governments, universities and public- and private-sector organizations all play roles in innovation.
Tags: economy, globalization, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
We’re happy, and now we know it
Sunday, June 24th, 2012
Jun. 23 2012
… despite the periodic bitching about poor teachers and assertions that the education system is going to rack and ruin, the evidence from testing of students suggests good things are happening within Canadian education. Better education leads to less crime, more income, greater job satisfaction and a more harmonious society… By contrast, the Canadian health-care system ranks somewhere in the middle of the pack for results and patient satisfaction – despite being near the top in spending.
Tags: Health, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
The importance of picking a vocabulary for dying
Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
Jun. 19 2012
Gloria Taylor, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, won the right to end her life at the time of her choosing… What do you call the right she won? Physician-assisted suicide? … there are many more variations, each loaded with legal and moral baggage… The language we choose tends to reflect where we stand on the underlying question of whether grievously and irremediably ill people should have the right to choose to end their lives rather than let an illness take its course. Ultimately, the fundamental legal issue is choice…
Tags: Health, ideology, pharmaceutical, rights, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Could be worse: Family income stays steady
Monday, June 18th, 2012
Jun. 18 2012
… two-parent families with kids and families led by single moms fared a little better in 2010 from a year earlier, while seniors did a little worse… The number of Canadians in lower-income status also held steady. Three million Canadians, or 9 per cent of the population, fall into the low-income cut-off, similar to 2009 though an improvement from 12.5 per cent proportion in 2000. More than half a million children – or 546,000 kids aged 17 and under – lived in low-income families in 2010.
Tags: economy, participation, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Terminally ill patients should have access to last-chance therapies
Monday, June 18th, 2012
Jun. 17 2012
“In such cases of catastrophic disease, if you have competent patients, if they want to roll the dice one last time, how dare society say, ‘We don’t care, we have our procedures in place’”… Canada needs a public debate about the need for compassionate access legislation, so that carefully selected patients with no other alternative can access drugs, under a doctor’s supervision.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, mental Health, rights
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
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