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Premier Doug Ford is using the COVID-19 pandemic to make the rich even richer
Thursday, December 3rd, 2020
When we factor in inflation and population growth, base funding will decrease for education at all levels, social services, and municipalities. Funding for health care, the program area that sees the most support in this budget, will in effect be flatlined… The Ford Conservatives’ budget includes significant and permanent tax cuts for, primarily, business and industry… We are witnessing more corporate giveaways that have robbed Ontario of the revenue needed to support front-line public services that everyday people rely on
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario’s family law takes a step forward in protecting the vulnerable
Saturday, November 28th, 2020
The new definition in the Children’s Law Reform Act (CLRA) uses the language of coercive and controlling behaviour and includes sexual, psychological and financial abuse as well as threats of or actual harm to animals among the behaviours considered to be family violence. It also makes explicit that conduct need not constitute a criminal offence for it to be considered in a family law proceeding.
Tags: crime prevention, jurisdiction, mental Health, women, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
A national child-care program would be a boon to Canada’s post-COVID recovery — none more so than Ontario’s
Saturday, November 28th, 2020
Ontario’s failure to build a 21st-century child-care system is holding back provincial economic recovery. Its patchwork arrangement of overstretched group care, tax-subsidized nannies and sky-high fees squanders tens of billions of dollars of GDP, income and tax revenue. Ontario, and other lagging provinces, have a golden opportunity to fix this problem — and in so doing accelerate Canada’s reconstruction after COVID-19.
Tags: child care, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, tax, women
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Universal child care would generate up to $29 billion a year in tax revenues, new report says
Wednesday, November 25th, 2020
… investing in a “care-led recovery” — for both children and those in long-term care — would create 2.7 times as many jobs as the same investment in a more conventional construction-led recovery… Not includ(ing)… the long-term benefits that come from the “enhanced capabilities and capacities” of children who otherwise wouldn’t have received professional early learning and child care. This leads to increased high school graduation rates, improved employability, higher career earnings and also reduced health-care expenses and criminality…
Tags: child care, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Understanding Ontario’s long-term care tragedy
Tuesday, November 24th, 2020
The problem is not the ownership model of LTC homes. The major oversights that led to this tragedy were a failure to proactively test asymptomatic LTC workers and a failure of successive governments to approve redevelopment in homes with multi-residential rooms. Blaming other causes is specious and does not honour the memories of the Ontarians whose lives have been lost to this terrible pandemic.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Wellness is a social justice issue in 2020
Tuesday, November 24th, 2020
It is time to admit that the path to personal well-being does not begin at the same starting line; COVID has exposed this heartbreaking fact on a devastating stage. Let’s not waste this crisis by aching to return to a “normal” that is fine for a few but unjust for so many others. It is time to define what wellness really is, not just for those who have the good fortune to commit to the practice, but for those who are struggling to stay alive right now.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Without investment, universities and colleges heading for a crisis
Tuesday, November 24th, 2020
Some of the necessary changes to the funding model for post-secondary education could be met by redirecting the $900 million in unused federal funding from the failed Canada Student Service Grant program. The government could also repurpose the Canada Training Benefit to ensure that Canadians have more meaningful and timely access to educational opportunities.
Tags: budget, economy, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s love-hate relationship with the nanny state
Saturday, November 21st, 2020
If there’s any time not to demean “the state” in utterly clichéd terms, it’s now. He’s clueless enough to unsheathe the nanny-state weapon at the very moment when governmental action is the only recourse, in a time of virtual — and literally viral — war. There is no substitute for the state in a war.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Mandatory minimum penalties are preventing judges from arriving at just sentences
Friday, November 20th, 2020
Courts have ruled some mandatory minimums unconstitutional, but that is not an acceptable substitute for justice reform. The COVID pandemic has emphasized that good leadership requires putting politics aside and listening to evidence and expert advice that serves the public interest… Sound justice policy can and should protect public safety, address systemic racism and support fair and just results for all.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, Indigenous
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Long-term care fiasco a warning about private ownership
Thursday, November 19th, 2020
Over the past decade, Chartwell paid its executives $47.3 million and distributed $798 million to shareholders. Meanwhile, in the 28 nursing homes Chartwell owns or operates in Ontario, the COVID-19 infection rate has been 47 per cent higher and the fatality rate 68 per cent higher than the provincial average… Contrary to business mythology, the private sector doesn’t always do things better. Rather, it always does things to make a profit
Tags: disabilities, Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
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