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Ontario’s higher minimum wage is long overdue. Now go for a ‘living wage’
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021
In no Ontario community does $15 an hour provide a living wage. By living wage we mean the sum required for shelter, food, childcare, transportation and other necessities. To determine the living wage rates, the network crunches and averages costs for a single adult, a single parent and a family of four… If anything, Ford’s announcement places a focus on other not-wonderful elements of how his government is, or really isn’t, working for workers.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Our nursing crisis is a public crisis
Wednesday, October 13th, 2021
It is not a mystery why nurses are leaving. They are overworked, face brutal working conditions, and a decade of wage suppression has been locked in even further by Bill H-124… The Ontario government’s solution to the nursing shortage is to train more nurses rather than stemming the tide of experienced nurses leaving… Just like physicians, there are areas of specialization within nursing that involve years of extra training… We call on the Ontario government to invest in nursing, stop calling nurses heroes and start treating them like human beings.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living, women
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ford government should dump old-school thinking on minimum wage
Wednesday, October 13th, 2021
In awarding Canadian economist David Card the Nobel Prize in economics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has given a huge boost to the value of empirical study in the field of labour economics. For it was Card, working alongside American economist Alan Krueger, who put real world wage increases in New Jersey under the microscope and found no support for the theory that a rise in the minimum wage reduced employment.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Reforming long-term care starts with Revera
Monday, October 11th, 2021
… the federal government owns 100 per cent of Revera, the second largest long-term-care and retirement home group in Canada… Revera as a for-profit chain has one of the worst records in Canada, with so far over 800 deaths in its LTC and retirement homes… The newly elected federal government should move on turning Revera over to the provinces as a not-for-profit public company in LTC… If the federal government wants to make Revera a real public not-for-profit, this is easily doable and the process could start tomorrow.
Tags: disabilities, featured, Health, housing, ideology, privatization, Seniors, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Countries reach agreement on corporate tax
Saturday, October 9th, 2021
More than 130 countries have agreed on sweeping changes to how big global companies are taxed, including a 15 per cent minimum corporate rate designed to deter multinationals from stashing profits in low-tax countries… The OECD said that the minimum tax would reap some $150 billion (U.S.) for governments… it would end a “race to the bottom” in which countries outbid each other with lower tax rates.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Has the pandemic really changed Doug Ford? A decent child-care deal would be a start in proving it
Saturday, October 9th, 2021
The federal government’s goals are all simple and positive for Ontario families and the child-care sector: Lower parent fees, at first by 50 per cent and then to an average of $10 per day. / Improve child-care workers’ wages. / Expand public and non-profit spaces… These objectives are all reasonable, at least to anyone not clouded by partisanship.
Tags: child care, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
How a national disability benefit would improve my life — and the lives of so many others
Saturday, October 9th, 2021
I’m one of more than six million Canadians with a disability. More than 40 per cent of people who live below the poverty line in Canada have a disability… Poverty makes my life challenging. COVID-19 made it worse. A national disability benefit would improve my life in many ways. A national disability benefit would help people like me improve our living conditions and be less isolated. It would have a positive impact on our health and wellness. It would raise us out of poverty and allow us to live with dignity.
Tags: budget, disabilities, housing, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Ontario’s 10-cent hike in the minimum wage is bad for workers, bad for businesses and bad for the economy
Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
Some minimum wage workers work full-time and full year, but most work part-time. At 20 hours a week, a typical minimum wage worker would be earning $29 more a week if the minimum wage was 60 per cent of the average wage. Instead, on Friday, the government of Ontario legislated $2 more a week for them. That’s bad for workers, bad for businesses and bad for the economy… it isn’t business that creates jobs. It’s customers.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
The PM must insist on conditions for health care funding to provinces
Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
Instead of rushing to hold negotiations this fall, as the premiers asked, Trudeau should put forward proposals of his own, starting with his long-promised pharmacare program, potentially bundled with any Canada Health Transfer increases. A single-payer public drug plan is supported by 86 per cent of Canadians according to the Angus Reid Institute, is backed by the NDP, and would save billions of dollars for employers, families, and especially the provinces.
Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction, mental Health
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
… how Canada has ‘turned a blind eye’ to cracking down on offshore tax schemes
Tuesday, October 5th, 2021
… as much as $3 billion in tax revenue is lost annually to wealthy Canadians’ use of offshore accounts. Add to that as much as $11.4 billion in lost tax from corporations with offshore subsidiaries, and tax havens cost the Canadian public almost $15 billion each year… Canada has been widely criticized as a tax haven because our provincial governments don’t require residency or even basic identification to register a company… a beneficial ownership registry for all federal corporations… would create a legal registry of the real owners of corporations.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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