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From health care to pharmacare to housing, federal budget fails Canadians
Sunday, April 10th, 2022
In many ways, this failed budget looks like gesture politics, the act of appearing to care but doing little of substance… Canada can afford to do better for its people. The Canadian economy is indeed “booming”… The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) expects GDP to hit $2.8 trillion next year, about 18 higher than Ottawa forecast in December… Using conservative estimates, Ottawa is projecting a sharp drop in the federal deficit…
Tags: budget, economy, Health, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Budget promises lower deficit, but more spending on housing, defence and social programs
Thursday, April 7th, 2022
To increase revenues, the government will introduce a new tax on financial institutions… [and] serves notice on high-income earners… to decide by next year if a wealth tax… is warranted… In addition to outlays for housing and dental care, the budget pegs new spending on climate action at $12.4 billion and more than $8 billion on national defence… [but] it fails to address the crisis in health care and long-term care with meaningful measures and money…
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Always ahead of her time, Kathleen Wynne has some advice as she prepares to leave Queen’s Park
Wednesday, April 6th, 2022
The pioneering ideas Wynne fought in vain for are back in vogue after the realities of the pandemic: Child care. Check. Pharmacare. Check. Paid sick days. Check. Minimum wage increases. Check. Basic income support. Check. Wynne’s defeat led to the demise of her reforms in all these areas, as Ford’s Tories systematically dismantled what she had built. Within days of taking power, the PCs pulled the plug on her OHIP+ drug program and then went down the list.
Tags: child care, economy, Health, housing, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Amid spiralling costs for Canadians and atrocities abroad, deficit is not a dirty word
Wednesday, April 6th, 2022
… business pages are full of opinions that say there’s already too much spending, deficits are dangerously high, and so any new spending must focus on supporting — surprise! — business, the self-proclaimed source of wealth creation… It’s very likely we are under-taxing some of the most profitable businesses, so yes, apart from borrowing, there’s a fix for the “how ya gonna pay for it?” crowd… Those urging governments to trim spending look only at the costs of programs, and not the fiscal dividends of acting.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, housing, ideology, pharmaceutical, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s troubling push for more private health care
Thursday, March 31st, 2022
… Health Minister Christine Elliott said the Ford government was “opening up pediatric surgeries, cancer screenings, making sure that we can let independent health facilities operate private hospitals…” … For supporters of public health care, the June 2 Ontario election may be the most important in a generation. Indeed, Ford’s drive to further privatize health care while continuing to underfund the public system and underpay health-care workers should be the top campaign issue.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Minimum wage meets maximum politics in pre-election Ontario
Thursday, March 31st, 2022
… Ford’s Tories… four years ago… cancelled a planned minimum wage increase — imposing a 26-month freeze on the old hourly rate of $14 an hour, shortchanging hundreds of thousands of working poor. Belatedly, Ford has ratcheted the rate back up to the previously scheduled $15, albeit about three years behind schedule. Now, after watching the premier play catch-up ahead of the June 2 Ontario election, the opposition parties are leapfrogging ahead of him
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The ‘care economy’ is growing the government, whether conservatives like it or not
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022
The government isn’t just getting bigger. It’s getting bigger specifically in the areas where costs are most likely to grow over the long-term… National child care, having been implemented, stands a fair chance of being permanent now. And COVID-19 has spurred even penny-pinching provinces like Ontario to commit to substantial health-care capacity expansions.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Look out Conservatives — big government is back, and Canadians like it
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022
Sean Speer, former economic adviser to Stephen Harper, wrote in The Hub in February, “We’ve gone from every major political party supportive of balanced budgets as recently as 10 years ago to today’s new multi-partisan consensus in favour of larger and longer deficits. Something obviously changed.”… historians may point to the moment last week when Canada’s social-safety net was significantly, and quite possibly, permanently expanded.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
On child care, don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good
Tuesday, March 29th, 2022
If the plan rolls out as described, it will improve early education for kids, cut costs for families at a time when they are badly pressed, and give the economy a boost by making it easier for women to participate fully in the workforce… All that being said, it’s still true that the Ontario deal is not all it could be. And, indeed, in some ways it is less than advertised… All this will be worked out in the years ahead.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
New evidence that hospital pressured to axe doctor who criticized Ford government on pandemic
Tuesday, March 29th, 2022
It’s been more than a year since Dr. Brooks Fallis was suddenly fired in January as interim head of critical care at William Osler Health System, in the hardest-hit part of Ontario. Fallis was respected and admired by peers and employers. He was also a passionate, incisive critic of the government’s pandemic response. One was given more weight by his bosses than the other.
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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