Posts Tagged ‘featured’
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A new social contract requires new programs and higher taxation
Tuesday, July 21st, 2020
We devote a relatively low share of GDP to social expenditure: Canada spends 17.3 per cent, whereas the 10-country comparator group spent on average 25.5 per cent… Canada has a low-social-expenditure/low-tax social contract. So, there is lots of room to raise taxes to get better services… Let us ensure that this truth is part of the conversation as we write a new social contract.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Tax us. Tax us. Tax us. Millionaires beg to be taxed more to help COVID relief
Monday, July 13th, 2020
Calling themselves the Millionaires for Humanity, more than 80 wealthy individuals… are petitioning for higher taxes on the rich to help pay for the billions in new government programs made necessary by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Today, we, the undersigned millionaires and billionaires, ask our governments to raise taxes on people like us. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently.” … Charity isn’t the answer.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
I was Stephen Harper’s criminal justice adviser. But I now think Canada should decriminalize drugs
Saturday, July 11th, 2020
Conservative politicians bear much blame for demonizing people who use drugs – derisively calling them “junkies” and “addicts” – opposing life-saving measures such as supervised drug-use sites and “safe supply,” and fearmongering for votes about drug decriminalization. Politicians must know that their action and inaction is continuing to cost lives. History will judge them for it.
Tags: crime prevention, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, youth
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Police chiefs call on Ottawa to decriminalize simple drug possession
Friday, July 10th, 2020
The group, which includes the chiefs of most police forces in the country, said a shift in federal drug laws is urgently needed to divert these users away from the courts and into the hands of health care and social-service providers. This is a long-standing demand of activists, scientists and public-health officials from across the country… less than two Canadians die per day of homicide and we have 11 Canadians a day dying of overdose
Tags: crime prevention, featured, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Lasting programs needed to cure our social wounds
Thursday, July 9th, 2020
COVID-19 is laying bare the consequences of four decades of neoliberal social policy choices… The poverty, homelessness and precarious work we tolerate and try to bury under inadequate social supports. The entrenched historical structural inequities like racism and sexism we sweep under the carpet but are the driving determinants of who is most negatively impacted by COVID-19 and most other illnesses.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context, Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
School pandemic plans don’t work for working parents, province told
Thursday, July 9th, 2020
Other jurisdictions are thinking outside the box so students aren’t simply divvied into groups and told to attend classes half-days or every other day — and Ontario should be too… The “hybrid” model of in-class and online learning “leaves working parents with young children, single-parent households and low-income families in the precarious position of having to choose between educating their children and their own employment,”
Tags: child care, economy, featured, Health, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Ontario to end streaming in Grade 9 and change other ‘racist, discriminatory’ practices
Monday, July 6th, 2020
The Ontario government plans to end streaming in Grade 9 — a long-standing practice that research has found disproportionately impacts Black and low-income students and severely limits their chance of graduating and going on to post-secondary education… The province will also introduce a ban on suspending younger, elementary-school kids — Black students are again disproportionately affected — and improve diversity in hiring and promotions.
Tags: featured, ideology, multiculturalism, participation, youth
Posted in Education Policy Context | No Comments »
How does Ontario respond to people in crisis — and how should it?
Friday, June 26th, 2020
… a big part of this new model has to be better mental-health care in general, so fewer people end up getting to that crisis point in the first place. The current model produces tragic outcomes, yes, but it also doesn’t work for a lot of people who never have a tragic outcome, per se, but need help they don’t get. And this is especially true with racialized or otherwise marginalized communities.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, mental Health, multiculturalism
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
It’s time for proper police oversight
Monday, June 22nd, 2020
In the area of police budgets and staffing levels, municipalities are supposed to call the shots, but that is not what happens. Defund the police? In Canada, it is more a case of trying to rein in salary increases… There will be no meaningful reform unless politicians and police boards fulfil their oversight responsibilities, including legislative changes at the provincial level.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, featured, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Here’s one simple — and relatively cheap — thing Ottawa needs to do to kick-start our economic recovery
Saturday, June 20th, 2020
Business closures have pounded women across the country, hitting service-oriented sectors that tend to be female-dominated harder than others. Parents who were able to arrange to work from home quickly realized that caring for young children at the same time is unsustainable… “There’s no way our economy can reopen, reboot and recover if 40 per cent of its labour market cannot engage the way it did before”
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, women
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
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