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Ontario: Brutal under-funding punishes health and education
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
What’s happening in health care, education, and other services tells a story of a government that simply refuses to invest in the services Ontarians need… The current crisis in Ontario health care stems not only from the pandemic, but also from bad public policy… coupled with tax cuts that have been implemented, it results in a shrinking public sector and weakened public services. That opens the door to increased private profit-making off of the public services that Ontarians hold dear.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Does Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan deliver on the promise of a just transition?
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
In 2021, the CCPA published Roadmap to a Canadian Just Transition Act, which laid out five guiding principles for an ambitious and effective just transition agenda in Canada. Those points serve as a useful benchmark for the Sustainable Jobs Plan… In the meantime, the federal government will need to focus on getting money out the door to the various training programs that it has promised to fund.
Tags: budget, globalization, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Show me the money: It’s not a worker shortage, it’s a wage shortage
Monday, September 5th, 2022
One of the key worker reasons for not taking jobs is that the jobs are lousy. One of the key ways that a job is lousy is that the pay is too low. Given the disruption in work experienced earlier in the pandemic, followed by sky-high inflation, expecting 10 people to apply for a $15 an hour job isn’t realistic… Job seekers are waiting for employers to show them the money—and to offer good working conditions too.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, immigration, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Ontario health spending will be too low if the 2022 budget is passed
Friday, May 20th, 2022
For every $1.00 the 2022 budget plans to spend on health care program spending (i.e., care) over the period 2022-23 to 2024-25, the government plans to spend $1.80 on health capital (construction). To truly improve access to care, Ontario needs to rebuild the health care workforce. The first step in that process is repealing Bill 124… limiting compensation increases to 1% is punishing the health care workers that we have depended on for the last two years
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living, women
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ontario budget falls flat on funding for public services
Wednesday, May 4th, 2022
Despite all the spending, public services do not seem to be a priority… Normally, health spending must rise by at least 4.5% a year just to maintain services. The budget’s plan for health care is to cut it… Take [federally funded Early Learning & Child Care] out of the education budget and the net result is that, in a time of high inflation, education is almost certainly seeing a cut in real funding per student…
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Budget 2022: Some progress, but no need for panic at the country club
Friday, April 8th, 2022
Today’s federal commitment to create a national dental care program will help millions of Canadians, but there’s a huge missed opportunity to move forward on pharmacare, long-term care and needed health care spending to deal with the pandemic’s impact… Many Canadians are feeling the weight of living in uncertain times. They need better income security, better access to Employment Insurance if they lose their job, more affordable housing, and the world needs a bolder climate change plan than what’s on the table.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, housing, ideology, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Budget outlook: $5 billion in annual tax cuts weaken Ontario’s case for federal dollars
Thursday, January 20th, 2022
“In the months ahead, we can expect Premier Ford to ramp up his calls for more federal funding, especially for health care. He is not strengthening his case by giving away $5 billion each year.” … A better approach would be to chart a course to restore provincial revenues through an ambitious program of progressive taxation
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
How to create a paid sick leave plan for Ontario
Thursday, April 22nd, 2021
The goal of any sick leave program is, above all, to allow people who have COVID-19, have been exposed to it, or think they may have it, to stay home and not spread the disease to their co-workers. Nothing else matters… any program must be just as simple and straightforward as the existing sick leave plans 40% of us enjoy… paid sick leave legislation need not be complicated: it has existed before in Ontario, and very recently
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Budget 2021 analysis: Does it deliver?
Wednesday, April 21st, 2021
About two-thirds of the spending is short-term, related to COVID-19 and the final third carries over to the third year. The programs that extend to the long-term are child care (for which this budget is transformative), long-term care, some business supports and some environmental measures (around clean fuel and climate adaptation)… a historically large budget, but it’s within Canada’s ability to both deal with the impact of a global pandemic and to plant the seeds for a public-led recovery.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, Seniors, tax, women, youth
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Will Canada’s Federal Budget meet the COVID-19 Challenge?
Friday, March 12th, 2021
Responding to an unprecedented crisis, the federal government mobilized billions in new support programs within weeks – an important “possibility proof” that rapid social policy change can happen. The fact that the sky did not fall when governments increased their deficits by billions of dollars also clearly demonstrated that the barriers to a better social safety net are political, not economic. The pandemic is the formative experience that will shape the lifetime political perspective of a generation.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
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