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Court strikes down most of Ontario’s Mike Harris-era anti-panhandling law
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024
Most of Ontario’s bans on panhandling in public places… have been struck down by a Toronto judge as unconstitutional… While finding that the ban on squeegeeing and panhandling in roadways should be upheld, Centa struck down all other prohibitions on soliciting donations in public, including from people near public toilets, payphones, ATMs, taxi stands and public transit stops, as well as on transit vehicles and in parking lots.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Justin Trudeau offers provinces billions of dollars for housing — but with strings attached
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024
… $5 billion — will be tied to provinces promising to meet certain conditions, among them to allow multiplex townhouses and multi-unit apartments…. “It’s off the table for us,” Ford said last month. “We’re going to build homes, single-dwelling homes, townhomes, that’s what we’re focused on.” … The remaining $1 billion of the $6-billion infusion for housing infrastructure is to be directed to municipalities to address “urgent” infrastructure needs that directly create new housing
Tags: budget, economy, featured, housing, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Justin Trudeau announces national school food program amid rising grocery prices
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024
Canada is the only G7 nation without a national school food program, and ranks 37th out of 41 of the world’s wealthiest countries when it comes to providing healthy food for children… one of the reasons for that was the lack of a national school food program… “We’ll finally be able to level the playing field”… the government plans to work with provinces, territories and Indigenous groups to expand existing programs, some of which are funded by under-resourced organizations.
Tags: child care, Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Cutting ER wait times? There’s an app for that
Saturday, March 30th, 2024
One prescription for improving the health of the urgent care sector: AI and virtual emergency departments are cutting wait times in the real ones… Researchers programmed AI into an app to determine which patients are most urgently in need of care… [plus] online emergency department bookings… with a list of criteria to determine if their condition allows for a short wait before receiving care… [and the use of] data points to boost staff at more demanding times.
Tags: mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Ford government’s budget shortfall soars to $9.8 billion as tax revenues plunge
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
“… We are going to follow through on a plan that is working — knowing that the higher deficits, compared to what we projected last year, will be time-limited while the return on investment will be felt for decades.” … settlements with public servants after the government’s Bill 124 wage-cap legislation was found to be unconstitutional have added billions in additional costs to the treasury. Under Ford, the provincial debt has soared by $116 billion to $462.9 billion, the largest debt of any subnational jurisdiction in the world.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Is starving Ontario’s hospitals and schools really something to brag about?
Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
In the last five years, the Ministry of Finance has brought in close to 30 measures to reduce its own revenues. All told, those changes drained no less than $7.7 billion from the provincial treasury in 2023-24… The overarching goal is not to use public dollars efficiently, it’s to drive economic activity into the private sector so investors can turn a profit. This is why the current Ontario government has no qualms about privatizing surgeries and diagnostic procedures — even though private procedures can cost more than double what they cost in a public hospital.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Under Doug Ford, Ontario’s tribunals are under severe attack
Thursday, March 21st, 2024
When Premier Doug Ford announced he wanted to appoint “like-minded” judges, critics were quick to condemn the assault on judicial independence. In contrast, a similar assault on the independence of adjudicative tribunals has flown almost entirely under the radar… In fact, connections to the Ford government or the federal Conservatives seems a much more valuable asset than experience or expertise.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Time to put the capita back in GDP per capita
Thursday, March 7th, 2024
The more societies set the stage to maximize their macroeconomic potential, the more they can make the impossible possible…the challenge isn’t about finding a better metric; it’s about putting the focus on the capita in GDP per capita. Because money doesn’t make an economy. People do. They — we! — are the true measure of an advanced economy.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Canada should support G20 plan to tax billionaires
Thursday, March 7th, 2024
In an unprecedented development, the G20 has announced it is exploring the idea of co-ordinating efforts to ensure the world’s billionaires pay annual taxes worth at least 2 per cent of their wealth… By co-operating, the world’s leading economies could curb the ability of the superrich to play countries off against each other, and incentivize nations to tax their own billionaires… It’s a plan Freeland should support, even enthusiastically champion.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
What Brian Mulroney got wrong on free trade with the U.S.
Tuesday, March 5th, 2024
Mulroney, Reagan and Thatcher sang a siren song. Get governments out of the way! Let the market rule! Economic globalization, with its program of free trade, privatization and deregulation and everyone would benefit. Corporations surely did… And Canadian CEOs did too… the richest CEOs are paid 246 times more than the average worker.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in History | No Comments »
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