Posts Tagged ‘featured’
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Convenient access to alcohol is going to cost us
Wednesday, June 12th, 2024
… while alcohol sales in 2020 put $3.2 billion into Ontario’s coffers, they came at a cost of $7.1 billion. That left the province with an alcohol deficit of $3.9 billion. Health care accounted for $2.3 billion. The rest went to servicing alcohol-related criminal-justice and lost production costs. These figures reflect a deficit capped by the limited number of LCBO and Beer Stores, a limit that will soon cease to exist.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Ontario’s health-care system is in crisis. More privatization isn’t the answer
Thursday, June 6th, 2024
We know that private, for-profit chains will come to dominate our health-care system if we let them. It’s already happening. That’s a recipe for poorer services, higher costs, and worse outcomes. We could achieve better results for less by removing the profit motive and focusing on community clinics run on a not-for-profit basis… instead of headed and run from a distance by some faceless, profit-maximizing firm.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
How Canada can fix primary care crisis
Thursday, May 23rd, 2024
In every neighbourhood in the country, just as there are schools for our children, there should be a primary-care home — or centre — served by a team of doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, dieticians, therapists, social workers, and others. Each person has an ongoing relationship with a primary-care clinician in this publicly funded team. The team is connected to other parts of the health system and social services. It’s a one-stop shop for your health related needs.
Tags: featured, Health, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Wealthy Canadians get huge tax breaks, even with budget changes to capital gains
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
The tax system is much tougher on working people, who make up the vast majority of Canadians, including almost everyone in the lower and middle class. Working people pay taxes on their full working incomes, with few exemptions, and their taxes are deducted before they even receive their paycheques. Then there are those who own capital — stocks, bonds and other property… “A buck is a buck is a buck.” The budget’s tax changes are a small but important step in that direction.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
We are rich Canadians and we support higher capital gains taxes
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024
Ottawa wants to raise taxes for Canada’s ultra-rich. Rich people like us want that, too… with 1 per cent of the country’s residents holding over a quarter of all wealth. We need higher taxes to level out this rising wealth inequality… to fund new spending on priorities like Old Age Security, clean economy, medical care, child care, and housing, but it doesn’t go far enough to address class distortions… we’d also like to see a “super wealth tax,” an inheritance tax, and progressive property taxes
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Fiscal folly in Ontario: New report reveals a cheapskate province
Tuesday, April 16th, 2024
In 2022-23, Ontario spent $3,251 less per person on public programs compared to the average of the other provinces… to reach the Canadian average, we would have to spend close to 27 per cent more on programs than we do now… On the revenue side, Ontario raises $4,033 a year less per person than the average of the other provinces… we would have to increase our total revenues this year by 32 per cent to be average.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Democracy Is Under Siege Globally. Canada Is Being Tested
Monday, April 8th, 2024
Finkelstein preached that you didn’t need a vision to win in politics, just good polling that revealed what people were against. Once that was established, the goal became tying the unpopular thing — immigration, carbon tax, inflation — to a flesh and blood political “enemy.” … The idea was to avoid talking about your own positions and policies, the better to demonize your opponent. The objective was not to sell yourself but rather to destroy your opponent… repeating simplistic slogans… “Axe the tax.” “Not worth the price.” “Everything is broken.”
Tags: featured, globalization, housing, ideology, immigration, rights, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Justin Trudeau offers provinces billions of dollars for housing — but with strings attached
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024
… $5 billion — will be tied to provinces promising to meet certain conditions, among them to allow multiplex townhouses and multi-unit apartments…. “It’s off the table for us,” Ford said last month. “We’re going to build homes, single-dwelling homes, townhomes, that’s what we’re focused on.” … The remaining $1 billion of the $6-billion infusion for housing infrastructure is to be directed to municipalities to address “urgent” infrastructure needs that directly create new housing
Tags: budget, economy, featured, housing, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
With its 2024 budget, the Ford government is asking you to trust it. You shouldn’t
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
… it’s one thing to announce billions in new health-care spending… It’s another to admit that 1.3 per cent growth is below inflation and nowhere near enough to sustain public health care in the province, let alone sufficiently expand it. It’s another still to admit that all this program spending amounts, on balance, to real-dollar cuts… The government is going all-in on highways and roads — with a few nods to the poor suckers stuck taking inadequate, crumbling public transportation.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, housing, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Is starving Ontario’s hospitals and schools really something to brag about?
Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
In the last five years, the Ministry of Finance has brought in close to 30 measures to reduce its own revenues. All told, those changes drained no less than $7.7 billion from the provincial treasury in 2023-24… The overarching goal is not to use public dollars efficiently, it’s to drive economic activity into the private sector so investors can turn a profit. This is why the current Ontario government has no qualms about privatizing surgeries and diagnostic procedures — even though private procedures can cost more than double what they cost in a public hospital.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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