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Omnibus crime bill ignores the true victims
Monday, November 7th, 2011
Nov 7, 2011
There is no evidence that women are not reporting because sentencing is too low. In a Department of Justice Study, female sexual assault victims were asked what they would do to fix the system and few said toughen sentencing. Most said stop blaming the victim, provide women with more support, invest in more prevention. A few even talked about treatment for offenders and centres for men who were victimized as children. None of that will be accomplished by this bill.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, rights, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Tough-on-crime bill toughest on taxpayers
Sunday, November 6th, 2011
Nov. 4, 2011
Even if Canada never reaches the startling levels of U.S. incarceration (with less than 5% of the global population, it is home to 25% of the world’s prisoners), for every new prisoner created by the Harper government’s toughon-crime bill, and for every year the new laws add to a prisoner’s sentence, there will be impacts to not just the cost of prisons and courts, but even more lingering strains on provincial health and social program budgets.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
So many ways to die
Sunday, November 6th, 2011
Nov 5, 2011
The National Post’s graphics team takes another look at what was killing Canadians in 2008.
Tags: Health, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Welfare and health
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
Oct. 28, 2011
The health-care crisis facing Canada today (along with its accordant costs) in many ways parallels the challenges facing Canada in the early 1990s regarding welfare dependency. The successful welfare reforms that gave the provinces the autonomy to innovate provide a model for reforming Canada’s health care… The CHST afforded the provinces much greater latitude to experiment and innovate in the design and delivery of welfare and related services. There were a number of common reforms implemented by most of the provinces. One common feature of reform was a reduction in benefit levels..
Tags: economy, Health, ideology
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Why taxing the rich makes sense
Friday, October 28th, 2011
Oct 28, 2011
Across Canada, thousands of individuals are standing up for what they believe in, and camping out in support of economic equality… These people should be honoured, appreciated, and most importantly heard, not simply disregarded as being a nuisance or a hindrance to society. / Fairness requires that the rich pay more taxes… keep capitalism, but income inequality must be addressed — fairness requires it. Poverty can be eliminated; small-government egalitarianism provides the solution.
Tags: ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Canada urged to end ‘pension apartheid’
Friday, October 28th, 2011
Oct 28, 2011
… a new book published by Wiley Canada – Pension Ponzi… depicts a system of “pension apartheid” that favours 20% of workers with unionnegotiated public-sector DB plans at the expense of the rest who guarantee those pensions through their future taxes. Most penalized are new Canadians, the self-employed, the chronically unemployed and those who have suffered market losses in RRSPs or prematurely withdrawn funds from them.
Tags: ideology, pensions, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Supply management does a body good
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Oct 24, 2011
The Free Your Milk campaign launched recently by the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association (CRFA) would have Canadian consumers believe that the price they pay for milk and dairy products in grocery stores will drop if only milk marketing boards and supply management are dismantled. Based on the experience of every other jurisdiction in the world, it’s not likely… In fact, Canadian prices have been lower than U.S. prices for 11 of the past 16 years.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The Tories’ tough-on-crime agenda is intellectually bankrupt
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
Oct 19, 2011
The Canadian government’s web site points visitors to several Justice Department studies on mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. None strongly support the idea that Bill C-10 will reduce drug use or improve public safety. “The evidence points the other way… the bill represents… a complete divorce between policy-making that affects millions of people, and real-life research and experiences…
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
Social science vs. neuroscience
Friday, October 14th, 2011
Oct. 13, 2011
… I have never encountered within the MHCC any group systematically pushing an ideological position as such, pitting social science against neuroscience. Rather, debates have been about how to frame these complex issues to help policymakers and Canadians at large understand and support a nationally coordinated, focused, evidencebased approach to mental illness. It is time to put aside these simplistic, outdated and ultimately divisive disputes and get on with the important but really difficult work.
Tags: ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Social science vs. neuroscience
Friday, October 14th, 2011
Oct. 13, 2011
Psychiatry… is a highly controversial social science… the real conflict in mental health is between two schools of social science, between those who believe helping with psychological problems in others should be guided by fundamentally compassionate and democratic principles, and those who believe in paternalistic, authoritarian control and domination of others.
Tags: ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
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