Posts Tagged ‘budget’

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Why Canada’s emergency response benefit rollout might be a mistake

Thursday, April 9th, 2020

As the Trudeau government scrambles to include one forgotten group after another in the wage-support program, the argument for shifting to a universal basic income grows more compelling… But [the Prime Minister sidestepped repeated questions… as to why the government hadn’t opted for a guaranteed basic income instead of a program that is constantly in need of fixes… the debate over a guaranteed basic income could become a major issue in the next election.

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Justin Trudeau unveils wages subsidy changes, increased support for student jobs

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

“They are new to the workforce so they don’t have a lot of money set aside for this kind of situation. At the same time, they need work experience to secure their new jobs and money to cover living expenses.” The government has also promised changes to allow part-time workers who have seen their hours cut to access emergency aid that pays $500 a week for 16 weeks… We will have additional measures to put in place to help the most vulnerable Canadians”

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Open Letter urges Ontario to boost support for people on social assistance

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

A coalition of more than 130 health care workers, community agencies and Ontarians living in poverty is urging Queen’s Park to increase benefits immediately to almost one million residents on social assistance struggling to survive during the COVID-19 crisis… the coalition says in an open letter to Children, Community and Social Services Minister Todd Smith… “If we are to weather this storm together, we must ensure that nobody in Ontario is left behind”

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COVID-19 Emergency Benefits: Who’s included, who’s left out and the role of provinces

Tuesday, April 7th, 2020

We normally design income support policies to ensure that we encourage work rather than provide benefits that discourage labour market activity, but we need to be doing exactly the opposite right now. Policy makers accustomed to making sure the design of a program only reaches their intended group need to adjust their thinking caps and cast a broader net. Multiple patches on an already patchwork system will be slow, messy, and exclude too many people that need help…

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Posted in Governance Delivery System | 1 Comment »


Zombie schemes & bad outcomes

Monday, April 6th, 2020

I’m pretty certain the governments summoning the zombie of performance-based funding back to life realize that their inappropriate measures can’t possibly make any college or university better at educating anyone. Rather, it’s a cynical move in- tended to set us up for failure, so that planned cuts can be cloaked as the result of “objective measures” that are actually loaded with ideology. The point is ultimately to control post-secondary institutions, and the work that takes place in them.

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Trudeau just green lit a ‘basic income’ for Canadians

Friday, April 3rd, 2020

… a basic income will cost $43 billion annually to implement across Canada. If we factor in provincial income assistance – and get rid of this inadequate cluster of systems – we’re down to $23 billion dollars a year… Incidentally, that’s what we pay every year to make the Canada Child Benefit happen – and not quite half the cost of both the OAS and GIS… let this pandemic be a catalyst for permanent action to stabilize the lives of millions of Canadians and create a healthier, more equitable Canada.

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Ottawa steps forward as COVID-19 crisis puts provinces in desperate straits

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

… temporary programs have a way of turning into permanent entitlements. Through the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, which pays suddenly unemployed workers $2,000 a month, “we might have backed ourselves into some sort of universal basic income,” … We may have accidentally federalized welfare… The problem with creating a basic income more or less by accident is that no one knows how to pay for it, or how it would adapt to regional realities.

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Invest in colleges now to rebuild Ontario after COVID-19: OPSEU

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

“It takes $4.7 billion to operate Ontario’s colleges… About $1.1 billion – almost a quarter – comes from international student tuition. As the government has cut funding, colleges have relied more and more on international students to make up the shortfall. With COVID-19, and without joint problem solving, that income will dry up – and so will college revenues. We’re looking at a postsecondary education catastrophe in the making.”

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They’re World War deficit levels, but not the biggest or the baddest yet

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

The deficits being projected now look to be roughly 5 to 8 per cent of GDP… The 1984 deficit was 8.1 per cent of GDP, when the economy was recovering from the 1982 recession and interest rates paid on the national debt were high. But in those terms, the deficits are not on the scale of the Second World War, when military production and defence spending pushed the annual deficit to 23 per cent of GDP in 1943. A comparable deficit in 2020 would be nearly $500-billion… Canada has seen worse.

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Innovations in health care during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

The now viral Twitter-based #caremongering campaign is a great example of how Canadians come together during times of crisis to look after one another… one of the most striking examples of virtual #caremongering is displayed by OpenLab’s Friendly Neighbour Hotline… the unbelievably rapid response to creating new international randomized trials of different therapies for COVID-19 is like none we have ever seen before.

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