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Ontario targets the poor by freezing welfare and delaying child benefit increase
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
Mar 26 2012
“We are not prepared to balance this budget on the backs of families who may find themselves in difficult circumstances . . . or on the backs of our children,” McGuinty said. He then proceeded to do exactly what he’d said he wouldn’t by announcing that Ontario’s welfare rates will be frozen at their already lamentable level. Even worse, poor children will be denied a $100 payment they were to receive next year… McGuinty is wrong to freeze welfare rates, including for the disabled, as the cost of necessities jumps…
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Robocall affair vaults Canada into big leagues of political scandal
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Mar 12 2012
Deliberate voter suppression would have seemed inconceivable in a Conservative party headed by Joe Clark or Robert Stanfield. But the gloves-off Harper partisans have shown such a taste for American-style electoral hardball… Certainly the Harperites have demonstrated what could be charitably described as a casualness about obeying Canada’s election laws, and an antagonism toward Elections Canada for trying to hold them accountable for violations.
Tags: crime prevention, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Jason Kenney’s immigrant song sounds strangely off-key
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Mar 08 2012
This is the Harper version of multiculturalism. They couldn’t have copied the outright anti-immigrant, anti-multiculti stances of admired figures like Germany’s Merkel or France’s Sarkozy…. Jason Kenney appears at (almost) every ethnic gathering yet sounds negative and hostile in most of his policies: denouncing levels of fraud in getting citizenship, changing the test, banning veils at the ceremony and this week attacking “birth tourism.”
Tags: economy, immigration, rights
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Too many needless government agencies in Ontario
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Mar 08 2012
Ontario has 82 taxpayer-funded health agencies… Even when they’re benign, they diffuse health decisions over so many different bodies that it’s impossible for Ontarians to keep track. And they’re expensive. Many are headed by well-paid executives and provide jobs for hundreds of government appointees… at a time of austerity, Ontarians need to know why the government needs so many stand-alone health agencies… There isn’t likely to be a better time than now to cull these agencies (plus the 526 that report to other ministers)… the public is primed for belt-tightening.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Women in the dark about massive Ontario study of female health
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Mar 06 2012
The most useful chapters for women seeking practical guidance are: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, reproductive health and older women’s health. The chapters on cancer and musculoskeletal conditions (arthritis, osteoporosis) identify gender disparities, regional disparities and socioeconomic parities, but they don’t tell women much about how to improve their odds… it could be a catalyst for change. Its research team estimates that if Ontario had a truly equitable health-care system, there would be 230,000 fewer people with disabilities and 3,373 fewer premature deaths in the province’s big cities.
Tags: Health, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Canadian health care needs a massive transformation
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Mar 14 2012
We need to provide comprehensive, integrated, community-based services that will improve population health, reduce inequities, reduce health-care expenditures and contribute to the sustainability of our publicly funded health system.
One essential step toward this transformation would be a coordinated pan-Canadian effort to develop indicators and databases that will support accountability in health care and drive the required changes… The health-care system was designed long ago to attend to a high prevalence of acute, infectious disease rather than our current pattern where chronic conditions prevail. The old business model provides poor service for people today with chronic conditions
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Premier says two birth centres will create ‘new option for our moms’
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
March 20, 2012
… the decision to invest $6 million in the pilot centres, which will be run by midwives and promote natural childbirth in a community setting, “marks the beginning of an important evolution in how we deliver babies in Ontario.”… Midwives at the centres will care for mothers from conception through to six weeks post-partum and serve as community hubs for prenatal education, breastfeeding and parenting support… Currently, four out of every 10 Ontario women who want a midwife can’t get one, largely because midwives are restricted in the number of hospital births they can attend.
Tags: economy, Health, women
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ontario staggers under burden of fiscal federalism
Saturday, March 24th, 2012
Mar 06 2012
in 2009-10, Ontario, with 39 per cent of the Canadian population, contributed 39 per cent to federal revenues, but benefited from only 34 per cent of federal spending — a gap worth about $12.3 billion or 2.1 per cent of Ontario’s GDP. The report concludes that this — among other factors — demonstrates the “perverse structure of Canadian fiscal federalism.”… The operation of fiscal federalism and federal spending decisions that take money out of Ontario at a time when its fiscal capacity is below average is indeed “perverse” and should offend Canadians’ sense of fairness.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Poor can’t afford more austerity
Friday, March 23rd, 2012
Mar 04 2012
… “taxes” is not a dirty word. They are the price we pay for a civilized society, for maintaining our common life. We need to share the costs involved more fairly… The provincial government must accept its responsibility as part of this call to action, and it can use tax policy to both address the rich-poor gap and to provide urgently needed help to alleviate poverty… We need a broad spectrum of society backing the call for fair, feasible tax increases on the wealthy, and to counter the anti-tax fundamentalism that has gripped so many.
Tags: poverty
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Raise taxes on the rich
Friday, March 23rd, 2012
Mar 03 2012
Rich people are not paying a disproportionate level of taxes. They are, generally, a higher burden on the world as they consume more resources than the rest of us. One of the best ways to equalize their contribution is to raise their taxes considerably.
Tags: budget, ideology, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
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