TheStar.com « Source « Social Policy in Ontario

Mowat Centre to shut down after losing government funding

Tuesday, April 30th, 2019

… director Andrew Parkin said the non-partisan centre would be closing because of the cancellation of its funding agreement with the province. Established in 2009 and associated with the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, the Mowat Centre conducts research projects related to public policy on a wide variety of topics including education, immigration and climate change… Another think tank, the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, announced two weeks ago that it would also be closing as a result of an end to provincial funding.

Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »

Legal Aid Ontario to cut jobs, impose hiring freeze after provincial budget cutbacks

Monday, April 29th, 2019

Cutting the positions, along with other administrative changes including a hiring freeze, salary freeze for management, and delaying implementation of IT projects, are projected to save the agency about $16.6 million… there would also be a compensation funding freeze for legal clinics, and putting a stop to funding for one-time clinic projects… Changes to how it deals with the private bar are expected to save the agency $13.9 million

Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »

The view from the ER: Ford is chopping up the safety net

Sunday, April 28th, 2019

On any given day, a small number of the patients seen in our ED are high-frequency users, many of whom have complex social concerns… Addressing… the problems of so many of my patients, requires real commitment from governments to support the social determinants of health – the social, economic and environmental factors that determine individual and population health. Instead, the government has promised cuts to public health, education, legal aid and social services.

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »

For years, child advocate Irwin Elman has been a voice for the voiceless. That voice has now been silenced

Sunday, April 28th, 2019

… with the Ford government’s decision last fall… tens of thousands of Ontario’s most vulnerable children and youth will lose the sympathetic ear — and advocacy — of several dozen staff dedicated to their well-being. These kids include First Nations children and youth, those seeking or receiving services from children’s aid societies, children’s mental health and youth criminal justice systems and those with disabilities or attending provincial schools for the deaf, blind and developmentally disabled.

Tags: budget, child care, featured, ideology, rights, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »

Drug executives face charges, just like street dealers

Saturday, April 27th, 2019

The U.S. government sent a powerful wake up call to drug company executives this week. For the first time, it charged a distributor of opioids, Rochester Drug Cooperative, its former CEO and another former executive with the kind of drug felony charges normally brought against the likes of street dealers and cartel bosses… In 2017 alone, 47,600 individuals in the U.S. died in opioid-related deaths, while the number in Canada was almost 4,000.

Tags: crime prevention, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, pharmaceutical
Posted in Debates | No Comments »

Cutting out-of-country OHIP coverage is wrong and pointless

Thursday, April 25th, 2019

… the government paid out just $9 million last year for emergency coverage… a tiny fraction of one percentage point, of overall Ontario medical spending of $63.5 billion (with a b)… The government’s argument is that the existing program covers only a fraction of medical costs abroad. On that it’s correct… And it’s a gift to private insurers who no doubt will see a spike in business if all out-of-country coverage is yanked away.

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »

Doug Ford’s OHIP move strikes at the heart of medicare

Thursday, April 25th, 2019

In the case of those who are “temporarily absent” from the country, the Canada Health Act reads as follows: “Where the insured services are provided out of Canada, payment is made on the basis of the amount that would have been paid by the province for similar services rendered in the province.” … By attacking the key principle of portability — the notion that Canadian residents take their health insurance with them wherever they go — it is aiming a dagger at medicare’s throat.

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »

Public health squeeze is the unkindest cut of all from Ford

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019

… this government’s method is to initially claim there are no cuts and then create confusion about what cuts it’s making and why. It leaves people on the ground scrambling to figure out what it means and when they say it means something terrible, as they have in this case, the government promptly denies it… It’s the province that’s sowing confusion, acting without consultation and downloading its health responsibilities onto municipalities…

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »

There’s nothing moderate about this Ontario budget

Saturday, April 20th, 2019

… the cuts are large. But so, too, are the tax cuts that rob the province of billions… the government took billions of dollars from the budget. That lost revenue, plus new corporate tax breaks, will drain an average of $3.6 billion a year from provincial coffers over the next three years. That money could have stayed in vital programs; it could have reduced the deficit. It did neither… But as a public relations exercise designed to conceal bad news, the budget did its job.

Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »

Ontario’s cuts to legal aid will hurt the poorest

Saturday, April 20th, 2019

It’s hard to fathom the fallout from the Ford government’s short-sighted decision to slash Legal Aid Ontario’s already inadequate budget by 30 per cent. The agency, established to provide legal services to the province’s most vulnerable citizens, was struggling to meet the need even before this. Its budget was so squeezed, in fact, that it could represent only people who are making less than about $17,000 a year. That’s far below the poverty line.
Even then, coverage was limited.