Posts Tagged ‘budget’

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It’s time to get rid of civil juries

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

The Ontario government should take steps to effect much-needed changes to the civil jury system. It is possible to provide injury victims with timely and fair access to the civil courts, while decreasing the civil case backlog. The right to a civil jury should be reserved for a small subset of cases, such as those that trigger the public interest or where community values are at stake.

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Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »


Basic income would be the biggest reordering of public finance in a generation

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

… the question of how it would be paid for (the UBI Works page on suggested tax increases to fund a UBI is eye-opening, in multiple senses of the phrase). One point that is worth dwelling on early in the discussion is what a UBI would mean for a pretty fundamental element of Canadian politics: the balance between federal and provincial spending.

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Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »


Private pay is not the cure for the Canadian health system’s wait-time crisis

Monday, September 14th, 2020

… sometimes more money is what’s needed. But the evidence is clear that fixing wait times, including for the kinds of procedures at issue in the Cambie trial, does not require endless new resources…. Teams that involve non-physician professionals, such as nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and more, can also see people more quickly… The work of getting there will be tough; it requires leadership on the part of governments, system leaders, doctors and more.

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Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »


The real challenge is to expand medicare, not just save it

Sunday, September 13th, 2020

While Canadians sing the praises of public care, they actually spend close to a third of their health-care dollars in the private sector — on things like prescription drugs, dental care, vision care, physiotherapy and home care… The job now isn’t just to protect medicare as it is against efforts to chip away at it, but to extend public coverage into other areas. A comprehensive pharmacare program should top the list

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The landmark Charter challenge over private health-care wasn’t about what you thought it was

Sunday, September 13th, 2020

the heart of the plaintiffs’ argument… If governments are to impose a monopoly over the funding of health care, they have an obligation to see that it is provided in a timely fashion… User fees and private insurance may not be the answer to wait times, but it is not impossible that the system could be reformed in such a way as to make more efficient use of resources, without harm to the principle of universal public funding.

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With the pandemic war still on, can we afford a postpandemic Throne Speech?

Thursday, September 10th, 2020

Team Trudeau’s original 2015 idea of using that extra borrowing to pay for a temporary surge in long-term investment fell by the wayside. There’s a strong hint it might be revived later this month. Would that make sense? The only fair answer is: It depends on what the money is being spent on… If it’s permanent, how will it be paid for?

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Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »


The Liberals seem to think they have abolished scarcity. Let’s hope they’re right

Saturday, September 5th, 2020

There was widespread public consent earlier this year to the proposal that the economy should be put into a coma, to prevent the spread of a deadly disease… Spending hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed money to keep the lights on in the midst of a once-a-century pandemic made sense. Borrowing billions more to fulfill every Liberal dream, political or ideological, does not.

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Tinkering with EI leaves the core problems unresolved

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020

Like the Guaranteed Income Supplement for Canadian residents over the age of 65, which tops up anyone with a monthly income of less than $1,500, we have the capacity to protect those between ages 18 and 64 from living in or falling into poverty, working poor or otherwise. Tinkering at the edges or succumbing to the chimera of evasive incrementalism will solve none of the fundamental problems that were starkly revealed by the pandemic.

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Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »


A just recovery

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020

… a basic income standard for the unemployed and people receiving social and disability assistance… [would improve]… their standard of living, their hope and trust in the future would grow, and their ability to participate… would increase… we need a basic services guarantee that helps every Canadian secure affordable housing, nutritious food, pharmacare, dental care, mental health care, and specialized support for people with complex needs.

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Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »


Trudeau’s using our moment of crisis to reinvent our economy. That’s exciting

Saturday, August 29th, 2020

The Liberals are not proposing radical change. Every advance they will propose is an expansion or acceleration of existing Canadian priorities and practices… The timing is right. Interest rates are at a historic low. The government’s cost of borrowing to pay for pandemic relief, a permanently stronger social safety net, and seed capital for tech-oriented startups with export potential is therefore manageable.

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