Posts Tagged ‘budget’

« Older Entries | Newer Entries »

Five things you should know about Ontario’s 2020 budget

Friday, November 6th, 2020

Here are five key items from the 2020-21 budget. 1. Record spending makes for a record deficit — but not record interest payments… 2. Health-care spending is, unsurprisingly, growing during the pandemic… 3. Lots of help for small businesses… 4. Lean years for schools coming(?)… 5. The cries for Ottawa’s money will never stop… As it stands, federal transfers to Ontario in this fiscal year were $33.4 billion, up $8 billion from last year.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »


Social assistance: Do higher benefit levels lead to higher caseloads?

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020

Do higher social assistance benefit levels lead to greater take-up? The short answer is yes, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t increase benefit levels… There are many positive outcomes associated with higher social assistance benefit levels. Having said that, when policymakers decide to increase benefit levels, they should budget for some increased take-up.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »


Without a path to fiscal recovery, we’re lost

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020

Ms. Freeland seems to believe that setting fiscal targets is somehow contradictory to committing to the pandemic-fighting task at hand. As if the second you identify where you want to take your fiscal balance down the road, you are implicitly starting to withdraw necessary stimulus… Maybe it’s the image of an “anchor”… Fine. Let’s call it something else. Let’s create a fiscal compass.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Debates | No Comments »


CMHA Ontario calls for ‘critical infrastructure’ investments in fall 2020 pre-budget submission

Saturday, October 31st, 2020

… eight core areas of need for the mental health and addictions sector: sustainable and long-term funding support… compensate staff appropriately… safer (overdose) supply programs… additional 30,000 supportive housing units over the next 10 years… a data strategy for the entire community-based mental health and addictions sector… Primary care and mental health and addictions integration… Expansion of mobile crisis response teams… A core set of provincewide mental health and addictions services

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »


Toronto to get $203M, Vancouver and Montreal to split about $108M more under city-specific housing plan

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

Fifteen Canadian cities will share $500-million in federal money as part of a plan to quickly build 3,000 new units of affordable housing across the country… the amounts allocated to the cities are based on factors such as the number of people in severe housing need.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »


What more is needed for the Ford government to do the right thing on long-term care?

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

The Ford government chose a commission over a public inquiry. Then it set a narrower mandate for the commission than what’s needed to truly fix a system that often warehouses seniors more than it helps them live in dignity. And the immediate changes it has made to long-term care fall short of the need.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »


Ottawa now has a road map to rein in digital giants

Thursday, October 22nd, 2020

… an Australian-type regime in Canada would allow news publishers to recover about $620 million in ad revenue a year that’s now going to swell the bottom lines of Google and Facebook. That would make up most of the revenue losses the publishers are expected to suffer in the next few years. And it would be enough to save the jobs of an estimated 700 journalists (and all the content they produce), along with some 1,400 others in the news industry alone.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »


Federal NDP chooses wealth taxes as the wedge issue party needs right now

Wednesday, October 14th, 2020

The biggest knocks against wealth taxes is that they encourage the flight of capital and tax avoidance, and they shrink incentives for investment. The Parliamentary Budget Officer costed the 1-per-cent tax proposal and estimated it would raise $5.6-billion in the current fiscal year, but also that each family’s net worth would shrink by 35 per cent in a vast expansion of avoidance behaviour.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »


A new chance for disability reforms

Friday, October 2nd, 2020

An income adequate to keep people out of poverty cannot be understated as a means to social inclusion… For federal and provincial programs to provide adequate income, punitive clawbacks by one program of another’s funds must end… Benefits should stack onto each other not cancel each other out. Income supports should also work in tandem with housing, employment, childcare, and other programs to lift people out of poverty.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »


It is possible to end chronic homelessness if we act now

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Our goal must be more than moving people off the street. It must be to help people live full lives and be connected, healthy and well. At a time when we are all struggling with feeling disconnected, this is more relevant than ever. Homelessness in Canada is not inevitable; it is the predictable outcome of choices we have made collectively over past decades. We must expand housing and support services to end chronic homelessness. At the same time, we need to address the forces that cause people to become homeless in the first place.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »


« Older Entries | Newer Entries »