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Sweet spot for low-wage earners: after-tax salaries of $30,000 or more a year
Saturday, February 11th, 2012
Feb 10 2012
… low-wage workers experience the biggest jump in financial well-being, personal skills and connections to family and community when their after-tax incomes rise to between $30,000 and $40,000. “This is when a single wage earner moves from merely existing to living,” says Peter Frampton, executive director of the Learning Enrichment Foundation, which is conducting the research in partnership with the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)… “We think this shows in very real terms what a person needs to earn to feel a sense of financial and personal well-being,”
Tags: budget, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 2 Comments »
National panel on native education gives Ottawa a failing grade
Saturday, February 11th, 2012
Feb 10 2012
… this government, the one before it, and so on, know everything that’s in this report. Native education is a disaster and always has been. Ottawa basically hands off far too little money to hundreds of reserves (regardless of their capabilities) to operate individual schools and pays no attention at all to the terrible outcomes for children. Less than 40 per cent of native students — half the rate for non-natives — graduate from high school. It’s a tragedy for them and a terrible waste of potential for the country.
Tags: budget, Indigenous, participation, rights, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Prime Minister Stephen Harper boasts about Canada’s economic performance while jobs vanish and pensions shrink
Friday, February 10th, 2012
Feb 09 2012
What we are seeing is a power shift. Governments and corporations are limiting their risk exposure at the expense of their citizens and employees. This trend is not new, but it accelerated sharply in 2012. We knew Harper had no intention of bolstering public pensions. But no one imagined he would make life harder for seniors, without any warning or public discussion.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Ottawa outsources the attack on the middle class
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Jan.6, 2012
… it is time for an end to the scattershot, no-strings-attached tax breaks being tossed from Stephen Harper’s government to large multinationals that are using it to drive down the standard of living in this country. Friday’s closing of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant is simply the most egregious example of taxpayers’ funds being used to try to bust unions or ship jobs out of the country… Under the Investment Canada Act, such takeovers are supposed to demonstrate a “net benefit” to Canada, but, in fact, are acting as an anvil on wages, living standards and the prosperity of communities in central Canada.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Toronto police ‘whitewash’ crime statistics by hiding race, study says
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Feb 05 2012
the Toronto Police Service got the go-ahead to collect race-based criminal justice statistics in 2010. But they’re still not releasing them publicly to help people determine whether there is a racial bias in policing… Police policy is to make the data public only “when deemed necessary.” And though there have been requests for the statistics, a police spokesperson says, “to date, they have never been released.” … Keeping the data secret does nothing to reduce the stigma suffered by young black males but it does make “quantitative anti-racism research impossible.” That’s not good for anyone.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, multiculturalism, rights
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Caterpillar closing part of a coordinated attack on unions
Sunday, February 5th, 2012
Feb 03 2012
Since it locked out 460 Canadian workers in January, the giant U.S. firm had made little secret of its intent to move their jobs to Muncie, Indiana. All it was waiting for, apparently, was a signal that the state government there was serious about crippling trade unions. The London plant closing is not an isolated event. It is part of a coordinated attack across North America on unions and wages… But the attack on wages is also being aided and abetted by governments. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is blatantly anti-union. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government is simply useless.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
How Canada let Caterpillar strip a plant clean
Sunday, February 5th, 2012
Feb 04 2012
… the union was locked out on New Year’s Day. There were no replacement workers to bust the union, because the union was merely invited to slit its own wrists — by halving most wages from $34 to $16.50 an hour. The U.S.-based owner, multinational giant Caterpillar Inc… started and ended this negotiation with a carefully choreographed plan to pack up, shut down and leave town… It won’t just relocate the heavy equipment on the factory floor, but harvest the technological know-how subsidized with government incentives and writeoffs. This wasn’t bullying, it was highway robbery — with our politicians watching from the sidelines.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in History | No Comments »
UN holds private meeting with native youth
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Feb 02 2012
They meet Monday with the UN committee on the rights of the child… The Geneva meeting is small and private — the six youths and the 18-member UN committee. Travelling with them are Ontario Child Advocate Irwin Elman and University of Alberta professor Cindy Blackstock, who is executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society… It is discriminatory not to give First Nations kids the same chances as other Canadian children, said Blackstock.
Tags: Indigenous, poverty, rights, standard of living, youth
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Small fixes to Ontario’s welfare system not enough, says progress report
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Feb. 2, 2012
Small fixes will not be enough to bring about the transformational change Ontario’s social assistance needs, says a progress report by the province’s social assistance review commission. More employment support for those on welfare, including those with disabilities; streamlined delivery and new benefits available to all low-income people outside the welfare system are some of the ideas the commission is exploring… the update discusses different approaches and highlights areas for more discussion.
Tags: budget, disabilities, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Harper’s pension reform moves breed needless resentment
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Feb 02 2012
Harper doesn’t want ideas. He wants a quick, made-in-Ottawa solution… He has a parliamentary majority. What he can’t do is stop Canadians from questioning his rationale (numerous actuarial reports show Old Age Security is affordable); questioning his motives (streamlined environmental rules would help oil producers); and questioning his trustworthiness (despite his claims to the contrary, immigrants fear he will restrict the intake of “non-productive’ newcomers such as grandparents, siblings and refugees.)…
Tags: immigration, participation, pensions
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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