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A rocky road to ‘recovery’ [mental health]
Friday, October 14th, 2011
Oct. 8, 2011
Since a draft of its national strategy on mental health was leaked this summer, the [Mental Health Commission of Canada] has been squirming under accusations of dysfunction, anti-psychiatry bias and neglect of the most serious mental illnesses. Critics point out the 30page document mentions “recovery” 67 times and “support” 125 times, but there is no reference to “psychiatry.” Or “schizophrenia” or “bipolar.” … the agency’s chief executive, promised to “correct” the strategy before its planned release next year, because “the current draft does not sufficiently reflect the essential role neuroscience, treatment and psychiatry have to play.”
Tags: ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Mining magnate’s $100M gift launches ‘Canadian Rhodes’
Friday, October 14th, 2011
Oct 14, 2011
“It’s about trying to create leaders,” said Mr. Schulich, 71. “If you call people leaders and give them 60 grand, some of them are going to turn into leaders.” … The award will work by a complex nomination process wherein each of Canada’s 1,300 high schools selects a single Schulich nominee. Of those, a selection committee will peg 75 students (60 Canadian, 15 Israeli) for the award… The Schulich Leader Scholarships will be administered by Toronto’s United Jewish Appeal.
Tags: philanthropy, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Post-secondary education in Canada ‘dysfunctional,’ report says
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
Oct 11, 2011
… problems in the education system begin at age five, with research indicating that one-quarter of children enter school without the skills needed to learn to read, write and perform math…. “The absence of common, or shared learning outcomes among Canadian provinces and territories is the most important weakness of K-12 education in Canada… Canada is unique in the developed world for having no national strategy for [post-secondary education], no acknowledged and accepted goals, no benchmarks, and no public reporting of resulting based on widely accepted measures,” the report says.
Tags: standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | 1 Comment »
The problem with capitalism
Saturday, October 8th, 2011
Oct 8, 2011
… the problems facing the United States and the world are too complex and varied to sum up in a single slogan… capitalism has been manipulated by the powerful and is increasingly unfair for the working and middle class. It is losing its ability to reward hard work and ingenuity such as that displayed by Steve Jobs. As a result, capitalism is becoming dangerously unstable.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Senate reform bill a ‘constitutional Trojan horse,’ Stéphane Dion warns
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
Oct 6, 2011
“New Brunswick has always argued — rightly and rightfully — that the fundamental character of the Senate cannot be changed by Parliament alone,” said Dion, the Liberal democratic reform critic… “If the provinces accept that the Senate’s character could be changed by Parliament alone, where will it end?” He later adds: “If a Prime Minister is permitted to ‘get around’ the Constitutional amending formula, why would he or she not be allowed to also ‘get around’ the need for consent to change provincial representation?”
Tags: ideology, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Landlords face no punishment for discrimination in online ads
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
Oct 6, 2011
Only Muslims need apply. It’s the exact kind of specifications the Ontario Human Rights Commission recently warned landlords against putting in their online classified ads —any denial of a prospective tenant due to race, ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability, among other things, is grounds for discrimination according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s housing policy and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Tags: housing, multiculturalism, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Unions are more democratic than big oil or banks
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Oct 5, 2011
I can’t recall the last time any company that I have shares in asking for my vote on the money they spend supporting political parties. Instead of attacking unions that display more democratic principles than most other institutions in society, go after the real oppressors like oil companies and banks who constantly squeeze money out of workers’ pockets.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
The flow of political donations in Ontario
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Oct 5, 2011
The province allows donors to give up to $9,300 to a party each year, well above the federal limit of $1,100 for individual donations… Of the more than $14-million that Ontario’s three main parties have collected in pre-campaign donations of at least $100 this year alone, nearly $9-million came from corporations and unions.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Creating a new IT culture in health care
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
Oct 3, 2011
… Moving from paper legacy systems to modern IT is a big change. New hardware, new skills, new attitudes, new assumptions. It’s really a new culture and you don’t get there in one step.” … we are well on our way and are starting to reap the benefits of health IT systems throughout the country… almost 260,000 tele-health sessions were held in 2010, supporting services such as remote care, education for health providers and administrative meetings… Canadians who received care via telehealth rather than travelling to other communities for care saved about $70-million in personal travel costs in 2010.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
B.C. injection site exempt from drug laws: Supreme Court
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Sep 30, 2011
In a unanimous ruling, the court has ordered the federal government to allow the facility — called Insite — to continue operations under a special Health Canada exemption that allows illegal street drugs to be injected under the watch of health care providers… The fate of the supervised-injection site had been muddied ever since 2008, when the Conservative federal government refused to renew a Health Canada exemption that had permitted the facility to operate in contravention of criminal drug laws.
Tags: crime prevention, Health, ideology, rights
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
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