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Run and hide! Lock your doors! The coalition government is coming for your democracy
Friday, March 25th, 2022
The true democratic disorder is when a party receives around 40 per cent of votes but gets 60 per cent of seats in Parliament, and then imposes their will on the country as if they’d received a true mandate. That’s delusional, yet it’s become our political normal. The last time a majority of seats accompanied a majority of votes was in 1984… Coalitions are by their nature improvisational and creative, so they don’t follow rule books. They’re also pretty inevitable now, since elections increasingly return minority governments.
Tags: child care, Health, housing, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Some key details in the “confidence and supply” deal between the Liberals, NDP
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022
The NDP will not move a vote of non-confidence, nor vote for a non-confidence motion during the term of the arrangement; Parties agree on the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and the work done by MPs at committees; Meetings of party leaders at least once per quarter, as well as regular meetings of House leaders and whips… to identify priority bills to expedite through the House of Commons… Parties agree to prioritize [the following]…
Tags: budget, child care, crime prevention, featured, Health, housing, ideology, Indigenous, pharmaceutical, rights, standard of living, tax, women
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Migrant workers make our agricultural industry viable. Why do we treat them as disposable?
Monday, March 21st, 2022
Employers — who are supposed to pay for the consequences of workplace injuries and disease — instead benefit financially from the WSIB’s discriminatory policies. Employers are getting richer on the backs of injured workers. This year, the government has decided to give a $1.5 billion rebate to employers, rather than support injured workers.
Tags: disabilities, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
There’s a fix to disinformation: Make social media algorithms transparent
Thursday, March 17th, 2022
In the period of newspaper and broadcast dominance, anyone could find out what news their neighbours were consuming just by opening the paper or turning on the TV. In the social media era, many of those interactions are dark. The solution is algorithmic transparency. But this is easier said than done, because the algorithms are the special sauce in the platforms… So far, lawmakers have listened politely, but not acted.
Tags: featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s government is quietly privatizing health care
Wednesday, March 16th, 2022
Recently, Health Minister Christine Elliott announced the expansion of private hospitals in Ontario… “we can let independent health facilities operate private hospitals.”… [which] sounds a whole lot better than this: “We will award public funds to private, for-profit hospitals and clinics, knowing that these private facilities are associated with worse care, higher costs and more deaths.”
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
The fearless Canadian firebrand shaking up Britain’s schools
Sunday, March 13th, 2022
… one of Britain’s top-ranked schools, free to attend and catering almost entirely to underserved low-income, minority kids… Its practices are openly assimilationist. But then again, so are most private schools, elite universities, high courts, corporate boardrooms and political legislatures. For decades, the progressive liberal elite have debated the merits of these castles in the sky while safely ensconced inside them. Meanwhile, inequality has deepened across the globe.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Tuition should be free. Anything else imposes a regressive barrier to accessing higher education
Friday, March 11th, 2022
In 1990, just before Mike Harris unleashed his “common sense revolution,” roughly 20 per cent of Ontario universities’ operating income came from tuition. That figure is now more than 50 per cent, which means Ontario is well on its way to privatizing higher education… the federal government also contributes to inequitable access… An RESP is essentially a federal handout to the upper-middle classes — and the banks and markets that end up receiving those monies.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Long banned in Ontario, private hospitals could soon reappear
Thursday, March 10th, 2022
… with the chaos created by COVID as a cover, the Ford government seems poised to allow a considerable expansion of private health care in the province… a dramatic development, allowing hospitals — the centrepieces of our health-care system — to be governed by corporate boards that prioritize profits, as in the U.S… private hospitals would undermine medicare by enabling well-to-do patients to gain faster access to treatment.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
With deadline looming, why hasn’t Ontario signed a child-care deal yet?
Monday, March 7th, 2022
Morna Ballantyne, executive director of Child Care Now, said Ontario’s funding of full-day junior kindergarten is irrelevant. “The idea is to use this federal money to build on what already exists,” she said. “If Ontario wants to argue that the federal government should pay a share of public education, then they should make that proposal.”… Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said the $27.2 billion the Liberals have budgeted for the Canada-wide program would not be enough to meet expected demand.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
COVID-19 has highlighted — not caused — current health care problems in Canada
Tuesday, March 1st, 2022
… Canada is now 51st in the world in doctors per population. Our world ranking in the ’70s had varied between fourth and eighth… Despite our limiting the supply of care, total health spending in Canada was estimated by the Canadian Institute for Health Information to be $308 billion in 2021 ($8,019 per Canadian) representing 12.7 per cent of Canada’s GDP. This ranks among the highest in the world.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
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