SNC-Lavalin is a sideshow to the real Wilson-Raybould issue
Saturday, March 16th, 2019
We should all stop simpering, shut down the Indigenous grievance racket, devise a serious reform policy and stop acting like pathetic apologists for the brave and good people who built this country, the Aboriginal people first among them… The natives have entirely legitimate grievances and we have to address them, but not by throwing money at undemocratic leaders and accepting the blood libel that we are the descendants of barbarians.
Tags: budget, ideology, Indigenous, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ontario tinkers with health care, and still nobody knows what anything costs
Tuesday, March 12th, 2019
Right now doctors are typically paid on a fee-for-service basis. Surgeries and other treatments, on the other hand, are paid for out of hospitals’ global budgets. This has it exactly backwards…. the really interesting unanswered question about these new teams is how they are to be funded… Doctors already have both the know-how and the incentive, via the Hippocratic oath, to do what’s best for their patients; giving them a budget constraint would incentivize them to do what’s best for taxpayers as well.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Pills can help people control risky drinking, so why aren’t doctors prescribing them?
Thursday, February 28th, 2019
A recent study found that fewer than 1% of Ontario adults with an alcohol use disorder is ever prescribed a drug that can help them drink less, and less often… Pills don’t address the underlying issues that drive some people to drink, like childhood trauma, anxiety and depression. And, in cases where people are facing massive social or legal problems, people with explosive drinking patterns whose livers are giving out, “for sure it’s better to have the goal of abstinence”… But for others, “these medications potentially can help a wide range of people get back some of the control they have lost”
Tags: Health, ideology, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Maybe now we can finally say it out loud — poverty is in decline
Wednesday, February 27th, 2019
… poverty tends to fall, and incomes to rise, in periods of economic growth… If the overall rate has dropped appreciably, it has fallen even more among children — especially welcome, given the lasting effects poverty can have on life chances. At nine per cent, it is down a third from just two years ago… That’s almost certainly due, at least in part, to the Liberals’ first and most significant policy reform: the rationalization of several existing child benefits and credits into a single income-tested Canada Child Benefit, with increased amounts going to low-income families.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Ontario universities still don’t really want free speech on campus
Saturday, February 9th, 2019
The University (of Ottawa) prizes and protects freedom of inquiry and all forms of freedom of expression… Others actually subordinate freedom of speech to social goals and to considerations of imbalances of power… [They don’t] see the idea that free expression and the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion can be at odds with one another.
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
It’s ideology vs. science in psychology’s war on boys and men
Friday, February 1st, 2019
What kind of families produce violent young men? Fatherless families… If it is fatherless boys who are violent, how can it be that masculine socialization produces harm both to mental health and society? … The document produced by the APA purporting to provide guidelines for the psychological treatment of boys and men is disingenuous, scientifically fraudulent and ethically reprehensible.
Tags: child care, crime prevention, Health, ideology, mental Health, youth
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
So-called ‘super agency’ not a magic cure for Ontario’s health-care woes
Friday, February 1st, 2019
All of these problems are well-known. The fixes for them are well-known, too. None of them involves merging all the province’s health-care agencies into one… If we want a super-agency to oversee all of health care, wouldn’t that be the health ministry? If the ministry doesn’t do that, what does it do? … Rather than waste time, money and energy on reshaping the health bureaucracy, the Ford government should move directly to specific solutions to well-identified problems.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
This is why conflicts with First Nations often seem insoluble
Saturday, January 12th, 2019
There is no overriding governing body to render final decisions when needed, or a judicial system able to issue judgments all parties are compelled to obey. Although Canadian courts make rulings on First Nations questions, it’s a toss-up as to whether they can be enforced. In instance after instance we have seen judges issue orders, only to have them ignored by bands who maintain they’re not bound by “settler” or “colonial” law. The majority does not necessarily rule; a small but determined portion of a larger community can stymie the will of the others.
Tags: economy, featured, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
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