Posts Tagged ‘budget’

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Budget 2021 analysis: Does it deliver?

Wednesday, April 21st, 2021

About two-thirds of the spending is short-term, related to COVID-19 and the final third carries over to the third year. The programs that extend to the long-term are child care (for which this budget is transformative), long-term care, some business supports and some environmental measures (around clean fuel and climate adaptation)… a historically large budget, but it’s within Canada’s ability to both deal with the impact of a global pandemic and to plant the seeds for a public-led recovery.

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Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »


Under pressure, Ontario government scrambles to launch a provincial sick leave program

Tuesday, April 20th, 2021

Ford scrapped the previous two days of guaranteed paid sick leave that were on the books after his Progressive Conservative toppled former premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in 2018. Local public health officers, mayors, opposition parties and the government’s science table of advisers have long urged paid sick days for workers whose employers don’t provide them. That has led to many essential workers going to their jobs with COVID-19 symptoms, spreading the virus.

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Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »


As med students, we’ve seen how Ontario’s lack of paid sick days has hurt low-income, racialized workers. More than 600 of us demand change

Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Without suitable paid sick leave, essential workers who are symptomatic or have been exposed are faced with an impossible decision: follow public health measures by staying home or go to work to put food on the table and bring the virus into their homes and communities… Ontario needs a robust and comprehensive provincial paid sick leave program that is universal to all workers in Ontario, proactive, and easily accessible.

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Laurentian’s senior leadership and Minister of Colleges and Universities should step down in wake of financial crisis

Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

The devastating cuts at Laurentian are the direct result of negligence on the part of Minister Romano, who was well aware of the financial challenges Laurentian was facing at least six months before they became public. Faculty no longer believe that Romano is listening to their concerns, or those of staff or students. As a result of the Minister’s inaction, Ontario’s university faculty and academic librarians have lost confidence and trust in Romano’s commitment to the university sector.

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Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »


The Ford government needs to press pause on plans to permanently expand online education

Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

Ontario has needed remote learning in the pandemic but it’s a long way to go from saying online education is better than no education to deciding that it’s so good it should be permanently expanded. Most especially if doing so risks destabilizing or further underfunding the school-based system that the vast majority of students will continue to need… the province needs to review what worked well with online learning and figure out how to address the shortcomings…

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If you don’t have $20 million, relax. A wealth tax won’t touch you

Tuesday, April 13th, 2021

Canada’s wealthiest 87 families had wealth of $259 billion in 2016; our top 44 billionaires increased their wealth by more than $50 billion during the pandemic… 79 per cent of Canadians favour a wealth tax… In fact, a wealth tax would be the simplest, fairest and most effective way to collect billions of extra dollars of revenue a year, and to limit the power and political influence of the billionaire class… Here are some of the facile arguments being trotted out against a wealth tax.

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OCUFA calls for resignation of Ross Romano amid devastating cuts to jobs and programs at Laurentian University

Tuesday, April 13th, 2021

The financial crisis facing Laurentian was created by the provincial government, which has chronically underfunded Ontario’s universities, cut and froze tuition fees without providing equivalent public funding, and abandoned an important Northern university in its greatest moment of need… Romano has demonstrated the same resistance to consultation, transparency, and accountability as the Laurentian administration.

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Assumption that institutions are best for elderly is false

Monday, April 12th, 2021

Today Ontario relies far too heavily on institutions and far too little on funding the support required to help elderly people age in place in their own homes or at least within small personalized homes, within their own community… We must challenge the negative assumptions about elderly people that are resulting in widespread institutionalization.

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Laurentian University is in peril, and it’s not alone. Governments have systematically underfunded universities and colleges across the country for decades

Sunday, April 11th, 2021

It is not due to faculty salaries, as the number of full-time faculty has actually declined over the last decade. Nor is it due to enrolment which has remained stable over the last decade… In addition to the government funding drought… campus modernization has left Laurentian with big mortgages on still half-empty buildings… [Laurentian] provides jobs for around 1,000 people, educates over 9,000 students and undertakes world-class research.

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How the Canada Child Benefit is Performing

Friday, April 9th, 2021

The CCB had a larger effect than the enhanced UCCB, primarily because the amounts available to lower income families are greater, but both reduced poverty. Interestingly, neither had visible labour supply effects for our sample population, despite concerns that enhancing benefits would discourage work. Our work provides further evidence of the efficacy of these types of targeted cash transfers as an effective tool for redistribution and poverty reduction.

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Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »


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