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Anti-poverty activists fight to save housing benefit
Thursday, October 11th, 2012
October 09, 201
… the community start-up and maintenance benefit (CSUMB) would be cut off at the end of 2012… It’s an emergency allowance, available every two years… It enables the homeless to move into an apartment. It helps low-income tenants who can’t pay their utility bill keep the lights on; job applicants buy suitable clothes; families fumigate bedbug-infested apartments; and people facing eviction pay their rent arrears.
Tags: budget, homelessness, housing, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | 1 Comment »
How Dalton McGuinty can undo the welfare legacy of Mike Harris
Thursday, October 11th, 2012
October 11, 2012
Social assistance today is more or less unchanged since the Harris Tories… in the mid-1990s… The current culture stresses catching people out rather than helping them out with housing, health or addiction challenges that keep them on welfare… all these years after Harris squeezed welfare, the best way to get more out of it — and secure public support — is not necessarily with more money or less, but sounder investments.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, housing, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Governing in the dark: Bargain basement citizenship
Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
Oct. 09, 2012
… in a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy, taxes are cut, the state shrinks and becomes less trustworthy, the services it provides less relevant and increasingly shoddy, and the distrust grows and curdles into cynicism. The result: a marketized politics of propaganda and pandering. It’s understandable then that, increasingly, those who want something better are looking outside of conventional politics: to their communities or global causes or to the streets
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
It’s time to build dignity into Ontario social assistance
Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
Oct. 09, 2012
For nearly two decades, Ontario has seen the continuous erosion of social assistance benefits and a system focused on surveillance and punishment rather than dignity and support. Our province’s social assistance system fails to provide an economic safety net. It also fails to provide opportunities for all Ontarians to contribute to the long-term prosperity of our province.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, housing, ideology, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | 6 Comments »
Ontario pharmacists can now dispense flu shots, meds
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
Oct. 09, 2012
Pharmacists can now give flu shots, renew most prescriptions, and prescribe drugs to help quit smoking… Pharmacists will be paid $7.50 per injection, which is provided to patients free of charge… pharmacists would also be able to provide up to six-month renewals of prescriptions for all non-narcotic medications. As well, they will be permitted for the first time to prescribe smoking cessation drugs.
Tags: budget, Health, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
What kind of Canada do we want?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
October 08, 2012
… Canadians widely agree: we are facing a serious and growing problem. A large majority of Canadians — including a majority of Conservative voters — are willing to pay higher taxes to protect our social programs… The federal government controls many of the key levers — income security programs, a progressive income tax system, and transfers to the provinces — that we need to combat inequality. Canadians should demand action.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
In defence of reason
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
Oct. 08, 2012
the most recent federal budget reveals that the 19,000 job cuts announced therein were… targeted very precisely at researchers, statisticians, scientists and other organizations who might use data to contradict a government which believed that evidence and rational compromise are not the tools of enlightened public policy, but barriers to the pursuit of an agenda based on ideology over reason.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Home-care crunch coming
Saturday, October 6th, 2012
October 05, 2012
We need to figure out how to build a robust system of community-based care. The home-care sector is drastically underfunded relative to its many challenges. Most important is the need to increase the supply of services in order to meet heavy demand both now and in future. Improved wages and working conditions are also essential so that the home-care sector can attract and retain good people.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, housing, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Let’s unplug the digital classroom
Saturday, October 6th, 2012
October 06, 2012
The use of digital technology in higher education has promoted ignorance, not knowledge, and severely degraded basic reading, writing and thinking skills. It’s time to hit the off button… whether these uses contribute anything to the main goal of higher education: to improve students’ minds and characters by helping them to learn facts, debate ideas and understand the world better. The answer, for the most part, is no — study after study shows that digital technology has dumbed down higher education.
Tags: budget, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
Fraser Mustard’s vision for kids lives on
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
October 02, 2012
It frustrated Mustard that policy-makers let these kids fail. It infuriated him that they refused to acknowledge the costs to society: needlessly high social assistance expenditures, mental-health problems, unemployment, crime, incarceration and chronic illness. But he kept pushing for change
Tags: child care, economy, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
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