Tax Cheaters, Give Us Back Our Money
Monday, November 5th, 2012
November 5, 2012
… more and more Canadian investment is going offshore to avoid taxes: it was 10 per cent in 1987 and 24 per cent in 2011… a Université du Québec à Montréal study estimated that between 1991 and 2003 the Big Five Canadian banks managed to avoid $16 billion in provincial and federal taxes through the use of offshore subsidiaries… the systematic use of tax havens is nothing less than grand theft.
Tags: economy, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Time for People with Disabilities to ‘Make the Rules in Our Own Lives’
Monday, November 5th, 2012
November 5, 2012
“Disabled residents… are vulnerable to a provision of community or institutional care that falls below a generally acceptable standard, a situation that does not allow them to live with confidence in safety, with freedom and dignity… The main reason for this is the excessive amount of discretion available to government and contractors respecting the services provided to disabled people.”
Tags: disabilities, ideology, participation, pensions, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
How Big Ideas Become Government Policy
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
October 22, 2012
Michael Walker, stated: “If you want to change society you have to change the ideological fabric of society.” … it would take time… Until the left begins to unleash some truly big ideas it will be on the sidelines watching the right continue to push the envelope with ever more dangerous ones… the group which most urgently needs to look for some big ideas of its own is the Canadian union movement.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, pharmaceutical, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Wealth Gap Is a Health Hazard for Rich, Too
Tuesday, October 16th, 2012
Oct. 15, 2012
… a very small number of well-tailored pickpockets were pilfering much of what we made. Then they had the chutzpah to blame us for not succeeding the way our parents and grandparents had… the report proposes improving matters by creating good jobs, improving income supports such as employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan, expanding public services, and making taxes fairer.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Euro Treaty Would Give Harper More Power at Home
Monday, September 24th, 2012
24 Sep. 2012
Like other trade agreements, this one systematically weakens the democratic decision-making authority of all levels of government. As such, it is Harper’s Trojan horse. In the guise of expanding “trade” with the EU, he makes progress in his goal of emasculating democratic governance… Two of the most egregious impacts have to do with Medicare and government purchasing.
Tags: economy, globalization, Health, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Open Government? The Dangerous Distraction of Faux Transparency
Wednesday, September 19th, 2012
17 Sep 2012
This is, overall, a pitifully shallow idea of open government, an Internet tranquillizer spread a mile wide and a millimeter deep… Promoters of Internet panaceas may be simply too naive to realize how governments cynically use their transparency rhetoric for anti-transparency ends.
Tags: participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | 1 Comment »
Finishing the Fight on Poverty
Monday, August 27th, 2012
27 August, 2012
… the percentage of single parent families living below Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO) after taxes has plummeted in the last 15 years, falling by more than half. Canada’s welfare rolls have dropped, too, from 3 million people in 1995 to just over 1.6 million in 2005… it’s a combination of “tough love” welfare-to-work policies that forced single parents off income assistance, matched with other, “soft-love” measures such as the introduction of a National Child Benefit Supplement in 1998.
Tags: child care, economy, housing, ideology, poverty, tax, women
Posted in Social Security Debates | 1 Comment »
Rolf Wiborg’s tough love for Canada
Monday, August 27th, 2012
22 August 2012
“The tar sands is all about providing secure supply for the people south of the border. And they should be allowed to do it but only if they do it right. Protecting the future of Canadian nature and human life, looking out for local residents, providing jobs and wealth to Canada. It can all be done, that’s what we are doing here. But you’ve got to stop thinking like a loser!”
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Women never said ‘we wanted it all’
Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
8 August 2012
Millions of women cannot afford to care for the children they have, work dead-end jobs, and cannot begin to imagine living the life of a superwoman. These are the women that the radical women’s liberation movement addressed and for whom they sought decent jobs, sustainable wages and government training, social services and child care. These are the women who are stuck on the sticky floor, not held back by a glass ceiling.
Tags: ideology, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Four attacks on workers by Harper Government
Saturday, August 11th, 2012
1 August 2012
… the federal government, supported by a number of employer organizations, has a plan for transforming Canada’s labour market… Taken together, these policies will suppress the wages and incomes of Canadians rather than address the real problems in Canada’s job market… Temporary Foreign Workers… Employment Insurance… Old Age Security… (and) Attacks on Unions… Canadians need our country’s premiers to denounce this low-wage agenda and stand up for what is in the best interest of working people.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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