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Healthcare needs collaboration, not finger-pointing
Monday, July 18th, 2022
The health-care crisis is different in nature from the pandemic, but alike in urgency. As such, it is a challenge of sufficient scale and complexity to be addressed at the first ministers’ level. This is especially true when [negotiating] pharmacare and national dental care programs… Collaboration on those files and addressing the crisis must involve more than cheque-writing that pours more money into systems proving inefficient. It must involve systemic and structural reforms to help make the healthcare system more sustainable – and easily accessible.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The Rogers outage, and other scenes from the death of neo-liberalism
Friday, July 15th, 2022
The premiers met in B.C. this week and wailed hysterically about needing more money to fix health care. I wouldn’t give them another cent till they pass a written test on what went wrong. They adopted the just-in-time principle from manufacturing (which led to bottlenecks and inflation now rampant) for health. They cut staff to a minimum. Why? Because it fit with the neo-liberal agenda to slash taxes and pay for it with decreased spending on public programs… Then when COVID hit, the system began to crumble.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Debates, Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario’s for-profit child-care owners demonstrate why they can’t be trusted to build Canada’s $10-a-day child-care system
Thursday, July 7th, 2022
As families in Ontario wait for child care fee relief, some for-profit child care owners seem more interested in continuing the status quo of sky-high parent fees and rock bottom wages for early childhood educators. They take issue with the new Canada-wide child care system, complaining that it threatens their bottom lines. In doing so, they are proving exactly why they cannot be trusted to build Canada’s $10-a-day child care program. For them it’s profits over parents, every time.
Tags: child care, featured, ideology, participation, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
How do we ‘fix’ Canadian health care? Not by forcing patients to pay
Thursday, July 7th, 2022
While we undoubtedly need to invest more public funds in our health care system, we need to do it transparently and strategically… Those looking to hand our health care system to corporate investors see a lucrative opportunity in private pay health care. It’s a seemingly simple and neat solution — but it’s wrong. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we need our publicly funded health care system to be there for all of us.
Tags: disabilities, Health, housing, ideology, participation, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Enjoy Doug Ford’s cheaper gas while you can. It comes at a high cost
Thursday, July 7th, 2022
You can’t promise to rebuild a cash-starved health care system while squeezing government revenues. You can’t pledge to build out long-term care and expand child care while cutting gas taxes… How do you defend bleeding the treasury of money that’s needed more than ever for services people truly need? … The problem with Ford’s vote-buying is that we can ill-afford the toll it takes on an ailing health care system.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
A self-inflicted recession and a pointless sacrifice to a mystical two per cent god
Sunday, July 3rd, 2022
With unemployment low, we now face a devil’s choice between continued inflation and deliberate recession. We need other strategies for motivating growth when needed, and slowing it when it’s not. Other tools could be invoked right now to control inflation, such as strategic price controls, targeted taxes on corporations and high-income earners, and low-cost or free public services. But the dominant orthodoxy demands monetary austerity, and nothing else.
Tags: economy
Posted in Debates, Policy Context | No Comments »
Liberals leave disability benefit bill in limbo as Parliament breaks for summer
Sunday, June 26th, 2022
When the bill was reintroduced… consultations were ongoing even as it took months for the government to bring the same bill back to the table for debate. The regulations will outline who would be eligible, the amount of the benefit, how often it will be paid and how, and an appeals process if applications are denied. There is also a big concern that the benefit might interact negatively with provincial programs resulting in clawbacks on other programs…
Tags: budget, disabilities, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Ottawa should stop clawbacks of pandemic benefits
Sunday, June 26th, 2022
Groups such as Campaign 2000, which advocates to eliminate child and family poverty, have… pressed the federal government to ensure that benefits and refundable tax credits such as the Canada Child Benefit are not clawed back and that any lost benefits are restored. (Ottawa did act to restore Guaranteed Income Supplement payments that had been reduced or eliminated because of pandemic benefits.)
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, poverty, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
‘Fixing’ emergency department wait times starts with investing in a strong primary care system
Friday, June 24th, 2022
Access to timely health care is predicated on a robust primary care system that is adequately staffed and supported. As a provider who has experienced the pressures faced by both the primary and acute care settings, it is clear that investing in team-based primary care and prioritizing access to family physicians is a necessary priority to address the crisis in our emergency departments.
Tags: featured, Health, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
B.C. and Ottawa are showing leadership in fighting the scourge of drug overdoses
Tuesday, June 7th, 2022
The exemption, which is authorized by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, will decriminalize possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy. Toronto has applied for a similar exemption, and the feds ought to approve it now… there’s abundant evidence that drug prohibition has little effect on how many people use drugs but plays a significant role in making an already risky activity even riskier.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
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