Posts Tagged ‘featured’

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With family doctors heading for the exits, addressing the crisis in primary care is key to easing pressure on emergency rooms

Friday, September 9th, 2022

Ontario has done better than most areas of Canada with the introduction of family health teams in 2005, with team-based primary care reporting better outcomes for both patients and providers. But no new family health teams have been funded since 2012, which is a problem… Political will is required to invest in the entire health-care system and not ignore the fact that primary care represents a very large part of this system.

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Liberals to announce plan to double GST tax credit, launch youth dental care and top up housing benefits, NDP sources say

Thursday, September 8th, 2022

The New Democrats say they have inked an agreement with the Liberals… that would double the GST tax credit for a period of six months. About 12 million Canadians could be eligible… Both parties also reached consensus on a plan that could see low-income youth under 12 receive a cheque for dental services by the end of the year. The plan is intended to be a temporary solution until a permanent dental care plan can be implemented by the end of 2023 and extended to those under 18, seniors and people living with a disability.

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Show me the money: It’s not a worker shortage, it’s a wage shortage

Monday, September 5th, 2022

One of the key worker reasons for not taking jobs is that the jobs are lousy. One of the key ways that a job is lousy is that the pay is too low. Given the disruption in work experienced earlier in the pandemic, followed by sky-high inflation, expecting 10 people to apply for a $15 an hour job isn’t realistic… Job seekers are waiting for employers to show them the money—and to offer good working conditions too.

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Ontario’s health-care system isn’t candy store to be plundered

Thursday, August 25th, 2022

With our health-care system reeling, Ford is charging ahead with further privatization — Ontario health care is already 40 per cent private — and selling this as a way to save the system through “innovation.” … The system’s problems have been thoroughly studied by countless commissions and the solutions do not involve privatization… Ontario has lots of unused hospital operating rooms, idled after years of cutbacks.

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Reforming our approach to drugs

Sunday, August 21st, 2022

… while study after study confirms that criminalization has no effect on drug usage rates, it has created a vast transnational network of organized crime… the federal government’s expert task force last year recommended an end to our century-long experiment with prohibition. As its “core priority,” the force recommended Canada “immediately develop and implement a single public health framework with specific regulations for all psychoactive substances, including currently illegal drugs as well as alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis.”

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Provinces need to have a plan for health-care funding — or they shouldn’t get the money

Monday, August 15th, 2022

Provinces want $28 billion more from the feds for health care… Yes, health care needs more funding. But negotiations need to focus on producing better results. Our premiers need to do more than just acquire more money — they need to govern our public resources, and show us their plans for using an infusion of federal dollars so we can buy change. No plan? No money. 

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A Guaranteed Basic Income for Canadians: Off The Table or Within Reach?

Tuesday, August 9th, 2022

Pilot projects… indicate that provinces are not in an ideal position to successfully implement an affordable and effective GBI. However, a GBI implemented by the federal government, financed by eliminating the GST credit and lowering personal tax exemptions, could be both effective and affordable. It could also do so without requiring the elimination of those provincial social assistance programs that are more deeply targeted toward people’s needs.

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What is Doug Ford hiding in his mandate letters to government ministers?

Thursday, August 4th, 2022

Ever since he became premier in 2018, Ford has refused to let the public see his mandate letters to his cabinet ministers. Indeed, Ford is so desperate to keep the letters secret that he’s waging a costly legal battle to prevent their release. It’s a fight he has lost all the way to Ontario’s top court and is now appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada… he’s also keeping the letters secret even from key bureaucrats who help analyze and formulate government policy.

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Why a universal job guarantee beats the basic income pipe dream

Monday, August 1st, 2022

Job guarantee programs are crucial for a number of reasons. They keep people in the labour force, alleviate poverty, improve health and well-being, add meaning to people’s lives and help the most vulnerable… Like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, universal basic income might take away the incentive to work for some, resulting in a labour market bereft of workers… a universal job guarantee would be more appealing to voters because it addresses labour shortages while guaranteeing minimum wage.

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What are the key trends in Social Assistance Summaries, 2021?

Monday, July 25th, 2022

The analysis in this policy brief provides a first set of pathways for governments to improve the human right to an adequate standard of living of some of the most vulnerable people in Canada… federal, provincial, and territorial governments have long neglected [unattached singles], often preferring to focus on families with children and seniors. Because of this, welfare incomes of unattached singles have become highly inadequate, falling well below the deep poverty income threshold in almost every province.

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