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Doctors decry crackdown on drugs
Friday, April 8th, 2011
Feb 7, 2011
The principle target of the 564 signatories – which includes doctors, nurses, social workers and law professors – is a provision that would impose minimum prison sentences of at least six months for a variety of drug offences, including operating small-scale marijuana grow operations… minimum sentences will serve only to fill up prison cells at great expense, while doing little to protect the public.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, Health, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
We need two-tiered medicine
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Apr 6, 2011
…the Canada Health Act must be modernized to allow patients to pay for care if they wish in entirely separate, privately funded facilities. Individuals who go to these centres would be paying for care out of their own pockets or through privately purchased insurance. By doing this, patients will be leaving the public queues and thus shortening them. Physicians would work in both systems. Patients choosing to access private facilities would also be free to use the public system that their taxes pay for. Private facilities would act as a release valve, removing demand from the public system…
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
The crisis no leader is talking about
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Apr 6, 2011
One key element of the Dodge analysis is that the looming cost increases for health care are not insurmountable. The emphasis — rightly — is on the idea that increasing total Canadian spending on health care from 12% to as much as 18.5% of GDP, or $42,000 per family, is “not undesirable or unsustainable.”… Whatever the number, the point of Chronic Healthcare Spending Disease is that the spending projections cannot be met under current health care laws and funding arrangements. Something has to give in the hearts and minds of Canadians about how health care is paid for and provided.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ontario teachers OK $60 fee to fight PCs’ Tim Hudak
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Apr. 6, 2011
“This will not be telling people which party to vote for. It will purely be looking at an issues-based campaign promoting the educational rights of children and of students and of having a good educational system,” said Mr. Ryan in an interview. “I would love us to have a situation where we were remaining completely non-partisan … [but] we are very concerned about Mr. Hudak’s policies on education and in general on the funding of public services… “The Conservatives believe teacher unions have too much power with the McGuinty government and would move quickly to reduce that influence…
Tags: budget, ideology, participation
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
7th graders go on field trip to protest with OCAP
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Apr 6, 2011
“… students had been discussing the issue of poverty and looking at the elements of the provincial budget that address poverty and hunger,”… the goal of the protest trip was “to teach students how they can make a difference… and part of that is how to engage our civic leaders in respectful ways.”… The west-end Toronto school… focuses on peace and social justice issues, with subjects taught “through the lens of race, class, gender, sexuality and ability,”… Each spring, students dedicate one week to volunteering for justice-based community and international organizations…
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
The waiting game
Monday, April 4th, 2011
Apr. 4, 2011
The allocation of medical resources is a political-bureaucratic decision in Canada, not a consumer choice. Instead of rejoicing that fewer Canadians are waiting for some procedures, we should be asking our governments why any delays to accessing necessary medical care are acceptable. Research consistently shows that there are little or no reported waits in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany -all of which have the same social goals as Canada: Universal access to health care.
Tags: Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Invest in police, not prisons
Monday, April 4th, 2011
Apr. 4, 2011
… the money needed to fund an expansion of the force remains locked behind bars, a prisoner of the government’s nonsensical jail-building crusade. How can a Prime Minister who is so philosophically committed to freedom be so fascinated with incarceration? Why does he worship the discredited American approach of locking offenders away instead of trying to reduce people’s proclivity to offend by investing more in social work, treatment for mental illness and drug addiction, as well as good, solid policing?
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Pierre Trudeau saved Canada
Monday, April 4th, 2011
Mar 25, 2011
Trudeau left his lasting mark following the Referendum by pushing through, by sheer determination, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms… Approval of it has remained consistent at the 90% level over the last two decades… In that vision, individual Canadians possess defined rights, and no province or region has a special status. In this bilingual, pluralist Canada, it would not all turn on Newfoundland’s cod, Alberta’s oil, or, most decisively, Quebec’s language. We would be masters in our house, but our own house would be all of Canada.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, rights
Posted in Equality History | 2 Comments »
Tories will never cut income tax rates
Friday, April 1st, 2011
Mar. 31, 2011
To pay for the family cut, other Canadians will have to continue to pay marginal tax rates that are too high. The family tax cut, in some ways, is just another tax expenditure, a special tax treatment aimed at fulfilling some social-policy objective. The major beneficiaries are likely to be higherincome single-earner couples with children. Everybody else is out of luck.
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
How much do Canadians make?
Sunday, March 27th, 2011
Mar. 26, 2011
In 2009, Canadians filed nearly 24.5 million personal tax returns. Of those, 8.3 million of them were non-taxable the majority of which are likely being filed by Canadians to ensure their ongoing eligibility for certain benefits and credits… Of the 24.5 million returns filed, 18 million Canadians reported total income of $50,000 or less. That’s not a typo. In other words, ignoring individuals who don’t file returns such as children, nearly 75% of tax-filing Canadians earned under $50,000 in total income in 2009.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
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