Ontario government aims to fast-track cancer drugs in new pilot project
Sunday, May 18th, 2025
During the election, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged that, if elected, his government would “significantly reduce wait times for life-saving medications… Canadian patients wait too long for public access to medicines following Health Canada approval, putting us behind other G7 countries” and promised to cut red tape without compromising safety. The Ontario pilot will include “select high priority cancer drugs” that are approved and part of Project Orbis, an international effort to co-ordinate efforts between countries to get medications approved and fast-tracked out to patients.
Tags: Health
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario budget leaves universities and colleges twisting in the wind
Sunday, May 18th, 2025
In 2019, the Ontario government cut tuition fees by 10 per cent and froze them. The measure cost universities $360 million and colleges $80 million, because the government didn’t make up for the budget shortfall. The government also cancelled free tuition for eligible low-income families…The budget also needed to address the structural underfunding of post-secondary education. Instead, funding is falling from $14.2 billion last year to $13 billion this year, to $12.8 billion in 2027-28… at a time when we should be investing heavily in our people.
Tags: budget, economy, Education, featured
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Canada can be the first choice for high-skill talent fleeing Trump’s America. But we have to act fast
Saturday, April 19th, 2025
We have the political stability, multicultural harmony and robust R&D activity in our world-class universities, teaching hospitals and networks of entrepreneurial tech startups to attract top talent from beyond our borders. But Canadian universities — epicentres of advanced research in a multitude of fields, and the intended destination for many potential U.S. immigrants — are coping with a funding crisis…
Tags: Education, Health, immigration, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ontario aims to get 300,000 patients off doctor wait-list with new clinics
Friday, April 11th, 2025
… the government plans to establish up to 80 new or expanded clinics — featuring teams of doctors, nurse practitioners and other health-care providers — based on postal codes with the biggest need in communities such as Toronto, Durham and Halton regions, Ottawa, and up north in Nipissing and Sudbury… Using postal codes will allow the government to “put some investments in teams in those areas to be able to have that big impact as quickly as possible, recognizing there is need everywhere,”
Tags: featured, Health, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
‘Victory bonds’ were vital to funding the First and Second World wars. Let’s not wait for the storm to hit before bringing them back
Tuesday, March 25th, 2025
Today, faced with an unprovoked economic attack, we must call on another of our strengths: being among the world’s fiercest savers… We’re saving at rates not seen since 1996… A can-do spirit has been reawakened in this country, along with a taste to go beyond a “Buy Canada” consumer response. Let’s save Canada like we did once, twice before; and finance the fight of our lives, together.
Tags: economy, participation
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
This is war. Time for a wartime funding mechanism: Victory bonds
Saturday, March 15th, 2025
… tax cuts and spending cuts [are not] what the nation needs most now, and neither will build the economic strength needed to defend our interests and sovereignty… Raise the floor, raise the ceiling and make EI last longer so it can do the job it was designed to do, acting as an automatic economic stabilizer to sustain purchasing power… prohibit the purchase of [businesses, resources and vital services] by non-Canadians… [and] create a “wartime” funding mechanism: victory bonds… an infusion of cash could fund desperately needed spending in the public interest.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
There is no way this Ontario agency should have such a large surplus. Here’s what it needs to do
Sunday, March 9th, 2025
Legal Aid Ontario’s surplus offers a chance to address systemic issues by raising eligibility thresholds to reflect real living costs. Current thresholds barely align with poverty levels, excluding many in need. Setting realistic criteria would expand access to justice. Expanding legal aid coverage is crucial, especially in family, immigration and housing law, where representation can prevent crises like evictions, deportations and custody losses. A well-funded system must treat these as essential, not secondary, issues.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s $612-million beer boondoggle tab could hardly have arrived at a worse time for him
Wednesday, January 29th, 2025
Why starve hospitals and deprive patients of family physicians while pouring money down the drain for beer and wine?… Ford had the past seven years to make good on his promises — on health care and housing, if not booze. Yet only on Monday, on the eve of an election, did his government come forward with a last-minute plan to give two million more Ontarians access to a family doctor within four years (in time for another election).
Tags: budget, economy, Education, featured, Health, homelessness, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Doug Ford always had a mandate to invest in Ontario, he just didn’t do his job
Friday, January 24th, 2025
Does the current government have the mandate to expand child care provision, tackle the colossal school repair backlog, reduce emergency room waiting times and assist the more than 100,000 Torontonians relying on food banks and 80,000 Ontarians experiencing homelessness? It does.
Yet, that’s not the focus. Year in and year out, the Ontario government’s attention and dollars have been poured into populist and nonsense measures nobody asked for.
Tags: child care, economy, Education, featured, Health, homelessness, poverty
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Why doesn’t Doug Ford care about funding colleges and universities? Because you don’t care either
Friday, January 24th, 2025
Shortly after taking power in 2018, with colleges and universities starved for money, the premier further reduced their cash flow by ordering every campus to cut tuition by 10 per cent… But those tuition dollars weren’t his to cut — the money was remitted by students. More to the point, his government didn’t consider making up the difference to keep universities and colleges whole, leaving them in a deeper fiscal hole.
Tags: budget, Education, ideology, jurisdiction, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
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