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The strange, and very political, death of hope
Friday, June 3rd, 2011
Jun 02 2011
Any rise in deficits came mainly from bailouts to banks, or needless warmaking. The point is: The catastrophe had/has no connection to government social or economic spending. Yet the only solutions proposed everywhere are public spending cuts. Ordinary people know, or sense, that this is stupid… But — and here’s where hope comes in, or flies out the door — governments slash anyway… This is how hope in public participation dies, or is killed off.
Tags: budget, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Liberals pass law to ease adoption of Crown wards
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
Jun 01 2011
Queen’s Park has removed legal barriers that trap most of the province’s 9,000 Crown wards in foster care with no hope of adoption. The legislative change, passed by MPPs unanimously Wednesday, will make more kids in the care of Children’s Aid Societies eligible for adoption, said Children and Youth Minister Laurel Broten… The legal change was among the recommendations of the province’s 2009 Expert Panel on Infertility and Adoption, which called on the province to double the number of adoptions of Crown wards within five years.
Tags: featured, ideology, rights, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Mental health top issue facing schools, coalition says
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
June 1, 2011
The new Coalition for Children and Youth Mental Health, a network of 26 province-wide groups, has asked each political party to spell out a plan for coping with what some call the “sleeping giant” in schools. “We wouldn’t let a child walk around with a broken arm, but kids with mental illness suffer just the same,” said Catherine Fife, head of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, part of the coalition. The coalition’s figures are stark. One in five children suffers from a mental health problem yet some 80 per cent get no help.
Tags: mental Health, standard of living, youth
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Drug war a failure, marijuana should be legal: International panel
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
June 2, 2011
A high-level international panel slammed the war on drugs as a failure Thursday and called on governments to undertake experiments to decriminalize the use of drugs, especially marijuana, to undermine the power of organized crime. Compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the report concludes that criminalization and repressive measures have failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.
Tags: crime prevention, Health, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Ottawa can lead the way
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
Jun 02 2011
In a new survey the Health Council of Canada makes what amounts to a strong case for Ottawa taking a leading role in driving transformative change in the system, to make it more efficient. The immediate problem isn’t money: there’s plenty of that. But “if the federal government does not play the oversight and collaborative role of bringing the provinces together (to boost efficiencies) the gaps in accessibility and quality and sustainability… will widen”…
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Wait lists for special education double for low-income students
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
June 1, 2011
“The average number of children on special education waiting lists in high poverty schools (10) is more than double the average number of children (4) per low poverty school,” says the study by People for Education, a research and advocacy group that for the first time compared special education services and school demographics. “And 28 per cent of high poverty schools report they have identified students who are not receiving the recommended support, again, double the percentage of low poverty schools.”
Tags: disabilities, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Equality Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Province to decide on satellite campuses for colleges, universities
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
May 31 2011
The Ontario government no longer will let colleges and universities decide where to set up satellite campuses — as many small and remote schools have done to gain a foothold in the populous GTA. From now on, Queen’s Park alone will determine if, and where, there will be new spinoff sites. The change is a bid to avoid uneven clusters of higher learning in parts of Ontario that leave other corners starved for post-secondary programs…
Tags: budget, ideology, rights
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Solution to economic crisis? More of same
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
May 31 2011
Reading Michael Boskin’s article is like reading a road map back to the 1890s and the era of the Robber Barons. Trying to paint the dire economic circumstances of the world as a result of mankind trying to create a more just and balanced democratic society for everyone is not only ludicrous but purposely deceptive. Nowhere is the real culprit identified — the 40-plus years of artificially low interest rates caused by the deregulation and lack of monitoring of the world’s major banks brought to us by the very same neoconservative politicians he champions.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Restraining the welfare state
Monday, May 30th, 2011
May 29 2011
… governments provide services, from defence and law enforcement to a humane safety net, that are essential to a successful economy and society. But the size of the welfare state — and the erosion of incentives to work, save and invest, owing to high taxes and bloated transfer payments — is a major impediment to faster income growth. This simple analysis should raise a red flag about how we think about the trade-offs between dynamism and security, or growth and redistribution… to control, reform and reduce government spending… is a prerequisite for substantial economic advance.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Tax policies may aggravate gap between rich and poor
Monday, May 30th, 2011
May 27 2011
Canada is witnessing a phenomenon in which the most wealthy are enjoying stunning increases in their income while the rest of society stagnates… In a 2008 study of 30 OECD countries, Canada was singled out as one of the member nations that has witnessed the worst widening of the wealth gap. Inequality and poverty declined in Canada for 20 years before the late 1990s, the OECD study said, but since have gotten much worse. Among OECD nations, only Germany saw as sharp an increase in inequality of household earnings, the report found.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | 1 Comment »
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