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Welfare rate freeze really a cut, activists say
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 27 2012
“What was the point of all of those meetings and consultations on a poverty reduction strategy anyway?” she said Tuesday, referring to the province’s 2008 plan to cut child poverty by 25 per cent in five years… With the latest Consumer Price Index pegged at 2.9 per cent over last year, the freeze is, in fact, a cut, anti-poverty activists say… (especially given) the budget’s plan next January to eliminate two benefits that help people on welfare with urgent housing-related expenses once every 24 months… In addition, the budget is also capping health-related discretionary benefits for adults on Ontario Works, which pays for things like funerals, glasses and emergency dental care.
Tags: budget, Health, housing, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Ottawa axes National Council on Welfare
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 30 2012
The council’s annual report on welfare incomes in Canada is the only comprehensive analysis of social assistance across the country and how it interacts with federal benefits… The council has also produced authoritative reports on child care, child benefits and low incomes in Canada. Its latest report, “The Dollars and Sense of Solving Poverty,” released in August, showed that it would cost $12.6 billion to give some 3.5 million poor Canadians enough money to live above the poverty line. However, the economic and social consequences of poverty cost Canadians twice as much, the report found… “Without the information, no one will be able to report on how many people this Conservative government is leaving behind,”
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
Toronto doctor worries budget cuts will affect poor patients the most
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 27 2012
… for Bloch, a family physician and University of Toronto professor who founded Health Providers Against Poverty, the government’s austerity-focused agenda does a disservice to public health, especially for the poor… “I’m very concerned… I’m worried it’s a cut with a dull knife and it’s largely the people who live in poverty, especially the extreme end of poverty, who are impacted the most.”… he added that wider social service cuts recommended in the budget — freezing welfare and disability support payments, for example — will likely do enormous damage to his patients’ health in the short-term.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
OAS savings could turn out to be costly
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 27 2012
If OAS had been denied to all 65 and 66 year olds in 2011, the overall costs of OAS would have dropped by about $4 billion. But because OAS is included in taxable income, there would also have been a drop of roughly $500 million in federal income taxes and a $300 million decline in provincial income taxes… Further, because these seniors (the 65 and 66 year olds) would have lower disposable incomes and hence less money to spend, there would be over a $100 million drop in federal GST and almost a $200 million drop in provincial sales and other commodity taxes and health premiums.
Tags: budget, pensions, poverty
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Fending off Canada’s pension crisis
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 18 2012
… we propose a voluntary pooled target-benefit pension plan (PTBPP). It involves commingling assets across all participating workplaces to maximize scale efficiencies in investment and to manage actuarial risk. Employers’ matching contributions would be mandatory but fixed, as in a defined-contribution plan. As with the PRPP, it would be available to individuals and the self-employed… upon retirement, members could expect a benefit within a target range, depending on market performance… On balance, the proposed PTBPP would provide better pension coverage, cost efficiency and retirement income security for plan members than would PRPPs or most current private group or individual plans.
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario food bank use… on the rise again
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 19 2012
Among the reasons for the current increase are recent plant closures in southern Ontario and native people leaving troubled reserves in the north… While the national unemployment rate in 2011 was the lowest since 2008, food bank use persists because many laid-off workers are taking lower-paying jobs and having trouble making ends meet… Ten per cent of food bank users in 2011 had never sought emergency assistance before… Single adults remain the largest percentage of users, at 39 per cent, followed closely by children younger than 18. They are among almost one in 33 Ontarians who go hungry each month
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Protecting seniors from elder abuse takes more than justice legislation
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 18 2012
… the Conservatives introduced legislation they say would lead to tougher sentences for those convicted of elder abuse. “Elder abuse is a serious issue and we must do whatever we can to fight it,” says Justice Minister Rob Nicholson… He’s right about the need to protect vulnerable seniors. But it will take more than a tweaking of the Criminal Code to do it. Here’s an idea: let’s protect seniors by making them less physically and financially vulnerable, thereby preventing much of the abuse from ever occurring.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Budget aims to remake Canada in Stephen Harper’s image
Friday, March 30th, 2012
Mar 30 2012
What matters in the budget is not the immediate impact of $5.2 billion in annual spending cutbacks announced by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Rather, it is the attempt to gradually transform Canada, from a country in which private and social needs live in uneasy balance to one where the urge for profit dominates. To Harper, private needs must have primacy.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Political obsolescence is in the eye of the beholder
Friday, March 30th, 2012
Mar 29 2012
Now, labour-hostile governments are all anyone under 40 has seen… I don’t blame the neo-liberals (also known as neo-cons) for having taken their shot… Their formulas turned out to lead directly to the crash of 2008 but, in the manner of true believers in all eras, they said we hadn’t done enough of what they prescribed. Our lack of faith in their creed was the problem; it was time for more austerity, deregulation etc… It suggests an opening for something different and genuinely new. Like what — activist, redistributive government?
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ontario budget is a requiem for a caring province
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
Mar 27 2012
Most Ontarians accept the need for belt-tightening. What they don’t accept — at least not yet — is that this province can no longer afford to support the vulnerable. That is the premise on which Tuesday’s budget… is built… It is the small items – cutbacks imposed on those eking out a precarious existence – that raise questions about McGuinty’s values. Although the premier enacted a poverty reduction plan in 2009, he has now effectively renounced it.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, Health, homelessness, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
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