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Federal health role is about more than money
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Jan. 10, 2012
… known long-term funding and is more than provinces could have reasonably expected from the 2014 first ministers’ meeting. The principle behind the federal generosity is clear. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking Ottawa out of the health-care debate and ending the national discussion of health and health-care system issues that began with the original federal funding in the 1966 Medical Care Act and continued up to the 2004 wait times accord. But is this a good thing for Canada?… There are at least seven areas that require national policy leadership and federal attention:
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Payroll taxes go up but jobless relief deteriorates
Saturday, January 7th, 2012
Jan 05 2012
Most of the jobs available now are part-time, short-term or casual. They seldom last long enough to provide workers with the hours they need to qualify for EI benefits… Rates of coverage vary widely across the country. In Ontario, less than 40 per cent of the jobless receive EI benefits… Successive governments have pared EI benefits… The rate-setting mechanism no longer functions as intended… surpluses cannot be accumulated in good years to use in lean years… (so) that when the economy slumps EI premiums go up, forcing workers to pay more when they can least afford it.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Parliament fails native women
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
Jan 03 2012
Three days before the House of Commons rose for its Christmas recess, a parliamentary committee quietly tabled a shocking report. It was called Ending Violence Against Aboriginal Women and Girls. But it wasn’t a plan of action. It wasn’t even a commitment to do better. It was a self-congratulatory compendium of existing programs… The Conservative government, which controls Parliament, can do as it wishes. It is clear it does not consider the disproportionately high rate of violence against aboriginal women a priority.
Tags: Indigenous, rights, standard of living, women
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
The case for tax reform
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
Jan 03 2012
… top-earning CEOs are sitting on $2 billion in stock options that are treated as dividend income, and taxed at half the value. That’s a tax break worth $475 million… It’s hard to make a compelling case that the affluent need tax breaks that ordinary workers will never see when Ottawa is short on cash. And when 3.5 million Canadians live in poverty… The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report… urges Ottawa to eliminate the tax break for executive stock options… the Conservatives do have options for dealing with the deficit beyond thinning out the public service and cutting transfers or services.
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
The high cost of poverty
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
Jan 02 2012
In 2009, the first year of (Ontario’s poverty reduction) strategy, the minimum wage jumped up and, most importantly, the Ontario Child Benefit was increased by hundreds of dollars helping to raise low-income families out of poverty The government has also started a process to reform social assistance… But (it) is still a long way off its goal to lift 90,000 children out of poverty… it’s troubling that the third progress report on Ontario’s poverty reduction strategy spends most of its 26 pages rehashing earlier successes and is light on new measures.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, youth
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Closing the gap between EI and welfare
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
Jan 01 2012
Last year, more than 700,000 unemployed Canadians were either not covered by EI or ineligible… Under Mendelson’s proposal, income-tested forgivable loans would be available in bi-weekly payments of almost $700 for six months. The loans would be repaid based on total earnings for the year the money was received — they would be completely forgivable for those with incomes below about $10,000 and fully repayable for those earning about $71,000… All adults looking for work would be eligible for the full loan of almost $9,000 every five years and it would could cost the federal government about $1 billion annually.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Canadian pollsters facing greater scrutiny
Friday, December 30th, 2011
Dec 30 2011
The call for stricter measures on how polls are conducted and reported is coming from some leading pollsters, who worry that the credibility of their business is getting dragged down by lax or controversial standards in Canada… “We are distorting our democracy, confusing voters, and destroying what should be a source of truth in election campaigns — the unbiased, truly scientific public opinion poll”… But unlike its U.S. counterpart, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the MRIA has yet to censure or discipline any of its members since it was established.
Tags: ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The decline of deference [and the internet]
Friday, December 30th, 2011
Dec 29 2011
That sense of an alternative way to run things is what the Internet may have implanted. In its early years, flame wars and other epidemics of egomania obscured its potential for collective, lateral decision-making. But now there’s Wikipedia and it works. You don’t need the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its stable of authorities. Or at least: you needn’t defer to them; they’ve become another resource. The discovery of new ways to decide leads to a diminished need for authority… The power of authority diminishes when you can hear credible, contesting voices.
Tags: ideology, participation
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
David Pecaut was ‘a popcorn machine of ideas’
Friday, December 30th, 2011
Dec 29 2011
…the Pecaut Centre for Social Enterprise… will have three purposes. • Its primary objective will be to develop Toronto’s next generation of social entrepreneurs… • Its second objective will be to act as a knowledge hub for the not-for-profit sector. It will grapple with one of the biggest challenges they face: How to measure the value (or in business terms, the return on investment) of what they do… • Its third objective will be to take promising social enterprises from startups to sustainable ventures… (as) the not-for-profit sector must be part of a strong, creative, compassionate Canada.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 2 Comments »
Fighting for safety on the job
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
Dec 28 2011
There were 24 deaths on construction sites in 2010 – eight more than the year before… Ontario needs mandatory safety training for construction workers and enhanced training for those in high-risk activities. Workers must be better informed about their rights and employers about their responsibilities to provide a safe work environment. All that must be coupled with better enforcement to make sure the rules are actually followed.
Tags: Health, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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