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‘Secret’ G20 law to be scrapped
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Feb 22 2012
The Liberals are replacing the archaic “secret law” police used to place hundreds of people under arrest during the G20 summit in 2010. The Public Works Protection Act has been shelved in favour of a new bill that would apply only to securing power plants and courthouses, said Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur. The legislation, introduced Wednesday, was created out of recommendations of former chief justice Roy McMurtry in the wake of the G20 fiasco. It is far narrower in scope than the old law.
Tags: crime prevention, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Harper’s pension cuts will hit the young hardest
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Feb 22 2012
Were Old Age Security a frill, this might not matter. But it is not. It provides a basic stipend of about $500 a month to people 65 and over — with all or some being taxed back from those who earn more than a net income of $69,562. Along with an add-on Guaranteed Income Supplement for the very poor, OAS is credited with vastly reducing the poverty rate among seniors… However, CPP doesn’t provide enough to live on for most. And some, such as homemakers, don’t qualify for this pension at all. An even more fortunate minority has recourse to employer-sponsored pension plans. But these are swiftly disappearing.
Tags: budget, economy, pensions, standard of living, youth
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Older workers age 60-plus represent 8 per cent of the workforce, but account for 30 per cent of new job gains
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Feb. 23, 2012
… since mid-2009, when the economic recovery began, until January 2012, people 60 or older have accounted for about one-third of all net new job gains. That’s striking considering they only represent 8 per cent of the total labour force… And the reasons for this are many, from being healthy and living longer to the end of mandatory retirement in Ontario, says a new report from TD Economics called Older Workers Stampede into the Labour Market… older Canadians are looking for flexible work arrangements that can include part-time, temporary work and self-employment.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 2 Comments »
Drummond-style restraint would be Ontario’s Greek tragedy
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Feb 21 2012
Government workers are laid off to save money, which leads to higher unemployment. Higher unemployment reduces tax revenues, thereby widening fiscal deficits. Governments are forced to borrow more to cover these shortfalls, thus increasing debt… If we assume, as Drummond seems to, that the U.S. economy will never fully recover and that the price of oil (and therefore the loonie) will stay perpetually high, then Ontario’s economy will remain precarious. In this scenario, “unprecedented” spending cuts of the kind Drummond recommends would be the worst possible action.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Outsourcing: the new way to balance government budgets in Canada
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Feb 21 2012
It is sometimes necessary to bring in private contractors to provide specialized knowledge or technical expertise. But not for budgets. They are the direction-setting documents of government… But today, leaders’ speeches consist mostly of generalities. And spending estimates are rarely examined by Parliament. By default, budgets have become the road map to the future. To ensure that they reflect the choices of the people — not just those of the leader — the budget-making process must be as transparent as possible, especially now as all three levels of government embark on retrenchment campaigns that will require difficult sacrifices. Yet each leader has made — or tried to make — the process more opaque.
Tags: budget, participation, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 1 Comment »
Mentally ill win right to challenge their lawyer’s performance
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Feb 21 2012
While effective legal assistance is seen as crucial at a criminal trial, where an accused person’s freedom is at stake, it is no less serious in the mental health context, where treatment decisions affecting a person’s liberty, dignity and right to self-determination are also at issue, said Justice Eleanore Cronk, writing for the appeal court… Without “the availability of effective assistance of counsel who is prepared to undertake fearless advocacy for the allegedly incapable patient at the board capacity hearing, the right of self-determination in respect of medical treatment becomes illusory,” she said.
Tags: disabilities, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Delivery System | 2 Comments »
Fix CPP, not OAS, to head off a pension crisis
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
Feb 20 2012
Making sure that Canadian workers can retire in comfort is possible in only two ways: Require workers to contribute more of their employment income to pension plans, or require workers to stay employed longer… However, increasing the age of eligibility for OAS from the current 65 will not accomplish either. Workers do not contribute to the OAS, and it is paid to all, not only workers. So increasing its age of eligibility will not increase the retirement security of older Canadians, but rather make it more precarious.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
The have-nots always suffer
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
Feb 18 2012
Why must the poor, the young, the old always suffer while the rich never do? While the Drummond report has some good ideas, the well-to-do remain, as usual, untouched. Not even asked to do without luxuries, perks and tax breaks all subsidized by taxpayers who cannot even afford to make their own ends meet. Where is leadership by example?
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Drummond Report: School boards fear loss of independence
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Feb. 16, 2012
School boards say Don Drummond’s recommendations, if implemented, would not only affect the quality of education but also further erode their independence… “I don’t think any minister sitting at Queen’s Park can begin to have the knowledge that we have here of our facilities, our schools”… [But} boosting class sizes slightly, as Drummond recommended, the Toronto board alone could save $40 million to $50 million.
Tags: budget, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Drummond Report: Hospital amalgamations and more power for LHINs among recommendations
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Feb 15 2012
The prescription to fix Ontario’s health system may sound harsh — amalgamating hospitals, reducing the powers of doctors in policy decisions and empowering local health integration networks — but it may be necessary for patients, says the commission in charge of reforming public services… “The health-care system is not really a system,” the commission writes. “What we have is a series of disjointed services in many silos.”
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
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