Posts Tagged ‘economy’

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Ontarians pay their doctors $12 billion a year. So why can’t they know where their taxpayer money is going?

Sunday, July 28th, 2019

“We have a great shortage of doctors in needed areas like geriatrics, rehabilitation medicine and family medicine, at least in part because those doctors are underpaid relative to other specialties,” Glazier said. “Having the right mix of specialties to serve the population matters to everyone who cares about our health system and population health.”

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Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »


Ontario can’t ignore the dangers of making booze more available

Friday, July 26th, 2019

Before the recent changes, Ontario had the most restricted alcohol sales of all the provinces – and, not coincidentally, the third-lowest per-capita consumption. The highest consumption tends to occur in provinces where alcohol is most readily available for sale… the costs are significant. Direct health-care costs pinned on alcohol use in 2014 were tallied at $11.1-billion.

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Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »


Here’s why the Liberals won’t brag about closing tax loopholes

Friday, July 26th, 2019

Morneau learned the hard way that raising taxes (or closing loopholes), unless in a manner that targets only a small number of extremely rich people, is a tricky business. However unfair or ineffective the loopholes, there will always be vociferous opposition to their closing, not least when those who have benefited most can well afford the best lobbyists.

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Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »


In Canada, the gap between the rich and poor remains stable

Wednesday, July 17th, 2019

… fewer people are climbing up the ladder into the next class — especially people in lower-income brackets. But while fewer people are getting ahead, they are also not falling behind much. Despite all the hand-wringing about worsening inequality and the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, Canada’s income picture is one of stability, with incremental progress for some.

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Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »


Universal, Single-Payer Public Pharmacare in Canada: An Overview of the Proposed Model

Wednesday, July 17th, 2019

This bulletin summarizes the key recommendations, which include implementation beginning in 2020; an ability for provinces and territories to opt in; new federal legislation and fiscal transfers to the provinces and territories; a $100 cap on annual household out of pocket spending; a national formulary covering essential medicine by 2022 and comprehensive coverage by 2027; and a dedicated process for assessment and coverage for expensive drugs for rare diseases.

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Why Canadians need to wake up about populism

Thursday, July 11th, 2019

Ordered populism… has four key conditions: A declining middle class, wage stagnation and hyper-concentration of wealth at the very top of the system; Major shifts in social values which see more progressive values displacing traditional social conservative values which… produce a cultural backlash by those seeing themselves falling victim to loss of identity and privilege; A growing sense of external threat…; Declining trust in public institutions plus a rise in ideological polarization. All those conditions are present in Canada. They predominate among less-educated males

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Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »


Governments can afford to make student debt disappear. So why don’t they?

Thursday, July 11th, 2019

In 2017-18, the federal government wrote off $6.8 billion in loans. The largest portion of that was $2.6 billion given to Chrysler after the economic crash in 2009… There is at least $14.6 billion per year estimated by the CRA that is withheld by wealthy Canadians. Recovering that money and giving it to Canadians to pay for their higher education would not only be popular, it would also redistribute wealth in an important way.

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Posted in Equality Debates | 1 Comment »


What if the long-expected boomer retirement boom never happens? The trend is in that direction

Wednesday, July 10th, 2019

… with lifespans now much longer than was the norm a few decades ago, both working and earning incomes for an eventual retirement are no doubt looked at differently than used to be the case. As well, workers with higher levels of education are more apt to be in the labour market as they age, as compared with those with lower levels of education… older workers may find themselves working, but on contracts or in part-time jobs, which may not be their first choice.

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Make pharmacare a priority in the federal election

Tuesday, July 9th, 2019

The upcoming election debate on this issue should address key implementation issues including: Identifying the goalposts and the mechanism for achieving the desired outcome. The role of the federal government, subnational governments and the private sector. Who pays for the incremental costs and how will it be financed. The mechanism to get buy-ins from all subnational governments. A universal system only works if all subnational governments participate in it.

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Jim Stanford on Uber and the future of precarious work: ‘It isn’t inevitable’

Monday, July 8th, 2019

… we should be continuing to invest in skills and the knowledge infrastructure… But we also need to be actively nurturing the jobs that people with those skills can most productively do… They only came to Canada because smart policy interventions brought them to Canada. We hustled for them, and we put in place rules. We said to a company like Boeing, for example, ‘you want to sell a bunch of extremely expensive aircraft to Air Canada? Well, you’re going to have to produce something in Canada.’

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