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Ontario is first province to make mental health lessons mandatory in Grade 10
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023
Now, the government will be providing consistent, required learning materials on mental health in Grades 7 and 8, including videos and activities about how to handle and recognize stress. In Grade 10, students — as part of the mandatory career studies — will be taught the signs of anxiety and being overwhelmed, and where to go for help.
Tags: budget, mental Health, participation, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Once a school troublemaker, Charles Pascal died a visionary for transforming education in Ontario
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023
… the first full-time executive director of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation… was key in establishing the Ontario Child Tax benefit, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing and early learning policy… The genesis of full-day kindergarten began with a pilot project led by the foundation… providing a model that has been adopted in other provinces.
Tags: child care, ideology, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education History | No Comments »
Doug Ford has plunged colleges and universities into crisis with historic funding cuts — and no plan for their futures
Wednesday, April 26th, 2023
… Ford’s Tories have been systematically freezing and defunding the higher education sector since taking power in 2018, leading to a cash crunch unlike anything in the past… The crisis in colleges and universities is undermining Ontario’s education reputation… It is perpetuating a hollowing out of higher education for Ontarians, while hosting unlimited enrolment for international students.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Heath care will only succeed through collaboration, not through competition
Wednesday, April 19th, 2023
Competition is… what happens in the most dysfunctional parts of our Canadian health systems, where value for money is most elusive and frustration is highest… Service backlogs. Human resources shortages. Mental health impacts. The co-ordinated effort required to manage recovery will probably dwarf what we have just achieved. More competition and fragmentation is the last thing we need. Collaboration is our only hope.
Tags: featured, globalization, Health, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Why bail reform in Ontario is an expensive mistake
Thursday, April 13th, 2023
It costs approximately $302 per day to keep one person in jail in Ontario… Two recent murders show how bail reform misses the mark… The failure here was not the law, but the police failing to use the law… Instead of locking people up to keep us safe on transit, we could put that money into lowering transit fares. Politicians need to look past bail reform and turn their attention toward a solution that actually makes us safer.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology, poverty
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Troubled life reveals gaps that led to murder
Thursday, April 13th, 2023
Failures of the health care system become problems the criminal justice system is expected to solve, even though it’s ill suited to do so. That said, the criminal justice system does play a role in issuing and enforcing orders for treatment and counselling… The only way we will solve these problems is by making a full-throated commitment to repair our frayed social safety net, to mend the gaps… and protect innocent people.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
A plan to end partner violence
Tuesday, April 11th, 2023
… far from protecting women and other innocent individuals, our over reliance on criminal justice might actually be increasing the risks for survivors of intimate partner violence… Given the control often exerted over survivors, the reports emphasize the need for economic security, housing, safe spaces and social and mental health services for survivors. And that in turn means ensuring consistent, stable funding for organizations that provide such assistance.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, Health, mental Health
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 1 Comment »
New rules to shield private clinics from public scrutiny
Thursday, April 6th, 2023
Ontario already has private clinics. But the government is greatly expanding them in number and function and carving out a whole new zone within our health care system where they’ll be allowed to operate with far less public accountability, scrutiny and oversight than is currently required of private clinics… Bill 60 imposes no financial disclosure requirements on the director, who will have sweeping powers over the awarding of lucrative clinic licences.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, privatization
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Supreme Court of Canada won’t hear appeal involving private health care
Thursday, April 6th, 2023
Two Vancouver private health facilities and four patients argued that provisions of the Medicare Protection Act violate their constitutional rights due to long waits for care in B.C.’s publicly funded system… Justice John Steeves said in the original court ruling that while long waits for care might increase the risk to some patients, the provisions were justified by the overall objective of supporting a system where access to health care is based on need, not the ability to pay.
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, rights
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Stephen Harper wasn’t obsessed with data. Here’s why Justin Trudeau is
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
This whole fixation on data is, first and foremost, a big product of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the realm of health care. Trudeau has talked often about how the government learned in the early days of the pandemic just how little information it had at its fingertips… The data deficit in the current public service has also been cited as one reason the government has needed to lean so heavily on outside consulting firms
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
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