Democracy Is Under Siege Globally. Canada Is Being Tested
Monday, April 8th, 2024
Finkelstein preached that you didn’t need a vision to win in politics, just good polling that revealed what people were against. Once that was established, the goal became tying the unpopular thing — immigration, carbon tax, inflation — to a flesh and blood political “enemy.” … The idea was to avoid talking about your own positions and policies, the better to demonize your opponent. The objective was not to sell yourself but rather to destroy your opponent… repeating simplistic slogans… “Axe the tax.” “Not worth the price.” “Everything is broken.”
Tags: featured, globalization, housing, ideology, immigration, rights, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Don’t Blame Carbon Pricing for Affordability Challenges
Monday, January 1st, 2024
With the latest data, we find that the gradually increasing indirect taxes, including carbon taxes, have caused overall consumer prices to be only 0.6 per cent higher in October 2023 than they were in January 2015… The effect of carbon pricing on rising food prices is even smaller, accounting for the indirect effects of carbon taxes… Carbon pricing is definitively not to blame for affordability challenges.
Tags: economy, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
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How to Defeat Poilievre’s Politics of Abandonment
Thursday, September 14th, 2023
For Poilievre freedom itself is conceived in opposition to government… The profit motive is what drives efficiency, no matter what “good” is being considered. Privatization then — whether in health or seniors care, housing, child care or transit — is the solution to the rising costs of living. The individual trumps the collective, competition trumps co-operation, private interests are king. Never mind that unregulated capitalism traps many in lives robbed of freedoms from want and drudgery.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, tax
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How a Massive Expansion of Public Housing Can Pay for Itself
Tuesday, May 31st, 2022
… public or non-profit housing could be built and run at break-even rents about a third lower than those of private rental housing… the provincial government could invest in creating new rental homes at a scale that would fundamentally transform our broken housing system. But there’s no reason in principle that this type of self-financed public housing couldn’t be built by any willing level of government. The federal government could certainly do it and so could large municipalities
Tags: budget, economy, housing, ideology, participation, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
We Finally Seem Ready to Take on the One Per Cent
Saturday, November 20th, 2021
Starting in the early 1980s and especially in the mid-1990s, social programs were cut and never restored, and no one suffered more than those at the bottom while those at the very upper end saw their wages (and stock options) begin to soar… But things change, sometimes quickly, and sometimes for the better. A minimum tax on corporate wealth was long seen as a pipe dream. Not now. Some 140 countries have just agreed to a minimum global corporate tax of 15 per cent… The pandemic has been a major accelerant.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Making the Case for Universal Basic Income
Monday, May 10th, 2021
The idea of providing a fixed income for all members of society to meet their basic needs and, in doing so, escape cycles of poverty, instability and ill health, is… a well-studied and financially viable option that would benefit Canada’s economy and social fabric immensely… Basic income programs are not tied to employment, and, unlike welfare and disability assistance, they do not require constant monitoring to determine eligibility and deservedness… basic income is about freedom. Not the freedom of unregulated capitalism… that prioritizes corporations above people — but a more expansive, human one.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
How a Basic Income Plan Could Save Lives in a Pandemic
Monday, January 11th, 2021
“Basic income doesn’t require empathy so much as recognition that we’re all interdependent.” “It matters what my neighbours are doing and what they can afford to do,” said Forget. “In some ways that’s very obvious when we talk about health. But somehow we don’t think that’s the case when we talk about economics.” … “it’s inevitable that we will end in a basic income in Canada.”
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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NDP and Greens Push Trudeau to Answer Vancouver’s Call to Decriminalize Drugs
Monday, December 28th, 2020
The MPs want Hajdu to use her authority under Section 56 of the act, which grants the health minister the power to issue an exemption from any part of the legislation “for a medical or scientific purpose or is otherwise in the public interest.” … to take the supply “out of the hands of criminals and remove the stigmatization, and ensure that people get access to safe, regulated, properly packaged products. And we need to substantially beef up our prevention, education and, most importantly, treatment options for substance users.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Why Canada’s Climate Advocates Are Excited by Biden’s Housing Plans
Monday, December 7th, 2020
“When you think about the housing crisis in Canada, the homelessness crisis in Canada, the joblessness crisis and the climate crisis, you have a solution which is literally where we live that offers us the opportunity to address all these intersecting crises at once”… The factors are all there for a Green New Deal for housing,
Tags: economy, homelessness, housing, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
The Law According to Beverley McLachlin
Monday, November 23rd, 2020
“Justice shouldn’t be some sort of abstract principle… It shouldn’t be there just for the well-heeled and corporations… It ought to be there for ordinary Canadians.” … The interview also includes conversations about how to think about progress, the role of the judiciary and the legal system in society
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
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