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An ailing Ireland’s lessons for Canada
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
Apr 23 2011
Economists are loath to attempt to measure the job-creation impact of corporate tax rates. Common sense tells you there can’t be much of a connection between the two if Germany, by far the healthiest European economy, imposes a rate of 30 per cent to Ireland’s 12.5 per cent. There are simply too many factors guiding business decisions to suss out the influence of federal tax rates on corporate profits. And Ireland is a prime example.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Crack down on illegal smokes
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
Apr 23 2011
… smoking rates have declined — tobacco still remains the leading cause of preventable death in Ontario. The government’s new bill tackling contraband tobacco offers more modest change. It would set fines of $100 to more than $500 for people possessing contraband cigarettes; let the police more easily seize illegal products; and tighten some tobacco industry regulations…. Illegal cigarettes account for more than 40 per cent of those smoked by high schoolers…
Tags: Health, rights, youth
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ontario retaining right to veto sale of public housing
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Apr 20 2011
The Liberal government’s new housing legislation requires all municipalities to have affordable housing plans with goals and timetables. And it gives municipalities more flexibility to meet those goals. But advocates said the law, introduced last December as part of the McGuinty government’s long-awaited affordable housing strategy, when too far when it eliminated the requirement of provincial consent for selling housing… The province’s decision to retain ministerial consent may thwart Ootes’ decision earlier this month to sell 22 single-family homes owned by the housing company.
Tags: homelessness, housing, ideology, poverty, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Enough with the right and the left
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Apr 21 2011
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French philosopher, psychologist and journalist… said progress “is not so much a movement toward a homogeneous or a classless society as the quest… for a life which is not unlivable for the greatest number.” What a modest, achievable goal. It’s strange how much harder it is to compose a phrase like that than to riff off some “liberal” or “conservative” clichés. If someone like Merleau-Ponty can get there, others should at least make the effort.
Tags: ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Judge Ted Ormston is on a mission to change lives [mental health reform]
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Apr 21 2011
The Toronto judge is making life better for millions of Canadians affected by mental illness… In 1998, he… propos[ed] that the Ontario government create a special court for mentally ill offenders.. The new court quickly proved its worth. It steered thousands of sick offenders into treatment, not jail… In 2006, he was seconded from the court to head Ontario’s Consent and Capacity Board… that decides whether individuals involuntarily living in psychiatric institutions can safely be released… His aim: to transform the mental health system.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, ideology, mental Health, rights
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | 3 Comments »
The truth about Harper and medicare
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
Apr 20 2011
As prime minister, Harper has done nothing on the health-care file. He has turned a blind eye as provinces allow more and more private health care. He has never met with the premiers as a group on the future of health care. Until two weeks ago when he suddenly promised to continue raising health transfers by 6 per cent, he had stood by silently while his finance minister, Jim Flaherty mused about reducing — not increasing — federal health transfer payments to the provinces. He shuffled off the parliamentary hearings on the health accord renewal to a powerless Senate committee.
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Canada’s EI regional lottery
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
Apr 19 2011
Canada’s employment insurance program is a postal code lottery — your winnings (if any) largely depend on your address. In this respect, the program is unique internationally. A recent study done for the Mowat Centre Employment Insurance Task Force compares Canada with 17 OECD countries. It is only in Canada that your region plays an integral part of the EI regime. Simply put, where one lives has a direct and profound effect on the three most important questions a recently unemployed person may ask.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
More money is not the answer for medicare
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
Apr 19 2011
… no matter whom we elect on May 2, we’ll be locked into a costly federal-provincial deal that does nothing to fix medicare. We already know what high-priced intergovernmental accords produce… We need leadership. What we’re getting from the men seeking to be prime minister are identical promises to throw more money at the problem… ad hoc initiatives won’t fix an overstressed health-care system. Nor will they induce the provinces to make badly needed improvements. But the federal leaders have spent our money and squandered their leverage with the premiers.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
‘Harperizing’ our minds
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Apr 19 2011
It is a moot point whether the process of opinion formation from the top down is merely happenstance or the result of insidious scheming by parties in power. There is, however, no doubt that one widespread, consciously pursued governmental practice is meant to shape what we think: government advertising… Some public expenditures describing official programs are essential and legitimate. But all recent governments have spent substantial sums of money
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, privatization, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Stephen Harper 3.0?
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Apr 18 2011
In many ways, Harper is the anti-Trudeau. He is far more economically oriented. He is predisposed to provincial prerogatives over central government. He is suspicious of the Charter. He stands for a small state (even while growing it for tactical advantage)… the question is whether a Harper 3.0 will rise up — and, if so, to what degree it will consist of an activist program of Canada-building (Arctic development, free trade agreements in Asia etc.) or merely the rolling back of what others put in place before.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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