Posts Tagged ‘featured’

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Why do provinces often confiscate federal benefits from people who clearly need them?

Saturday, May 23rd, 2020

Taken together, as many as 52,000 people on social assistance receive federal and provincial benefits that are subject to complete clawbacks… Those clawbacks poured about $34 million into provincial coffers in April… Ontario isn’t ready to give any of that money back to people such as Demerse by treating EI the same as CERB during the pandemic… it may be time to consider uploading social assistance to the federal level and leave provinces to continue offering supports such as employment training, prescription drugs, dental and vision care for low-income residents

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Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »


The CERB is nothing like a basic income, but it might be the platform we use to build one

Friday, May 22nd, 2020

the possibility that today’s pandemic-induced mass unemployment may continue for longer than anticipated makes reform of income support both more likely and more urgent. And the general idea of a basic income – a single, unconditional transfer, without the intrusive and bewildering eligibility requirements that demean its recipients and leave many others without – remains as valid as ever… The CERB, for all its limitations, has created the precedent for a federal benefit of this kind. Maybe there’s an opening here, after all.

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What Kind of Economic Recovery do Canadians Want?

Friday, May 22nd, 2020

Canadians, by a 2 to 1 margin, want governments to spend whatever is required to rebuild and stimulate the economy, even if it means running large deficits for the foreseeable future… Building Canada’s ability to produce key products like food and medical supplies domestically… Investing in strengthening the health system, including universal public pharmacare… Not letting richer Canadians off the hook for contributing their fair share… Helping people who need it the most…

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CERB and other coronavirus benefits won’t last forever. Or will they? What a universal basic income could look like

Sunday, May 17th, 2020

We long for some good to come from this crisis, some national purpose that future generations will point to and say: There, that is when the new world began, when we started to win the war on poverty with an income for all. But maybe a basic income is simply beyond our means… We’ll predict this much: When the crisis finally ends, we’ll be talking about basic income in a way we never have before.

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Posted in Social Security Debates | 1 Comment »


When it comes to long-term care, what matters more than ownership is accountability and responsibility

Tuesday, May 12th, 2020

The profit motive works in our market system. But what works for Walmart — relentless cost-cutting pressure on suppliers and minimal staffing ratios for low wage part-timers — is hardly an optimal model for nursing homes where part-time, underpaid caregivers are responsible for safeguarding people, not products… There is no excuse for not regulating and inspecting comprehensively, annually and aggressively. Surely that is the primary role and responsibility of government

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Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »


Pandemic proves value of guaranteed incomes

Saturday, May 9th, 2020

We know that we will emerge from this crisis with higher levels of unemployment than we have seen in two generations. We should be prepared for a winter ahead into which millions of Canadians will be headed broke, unemployed and close to despair… It might lead to the most transformational changes in today’s rich but increasingly divided and unequal economies since Bismarck invented the public pension system, nearly 140 years ago.

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This is the model for long-term care we need and deserve

Friday, May 8th, 2020

… all organizations need adequately paid and trained staff to accomplish their mission… Another prerequisite is non-profit personal care… we want to minimize the incentives for underservicing… There are two major strategies for LTC reform. The first is a different LTC institution. The second is to move LTC to the community… the Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly… PACE provides all needed health services at home 24/7… let’s save billions of dollars in bricks and mortar with a Canadian version PACE.

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Posted in Child & Family Debates, Equality Debates | No Comments »


COVID-19 presents lessons in how a guaranteed basic income program could work

Monday, May 4th, 2020

Basic income can be designed to target only those who need a top-up to provide for and maintain a very basic standard of living. And it can be implemented with speed, simplicity and efficiency by the keepers of our tax files, the Canada Revenue Agency… Fifty members of the present Senate (from the left, right and centre) have written to the government recommending that transition planning work be done now…

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Completing the promise of Medicare

Sunday, May 3rd, 2020

Because of COVID-19, millions more have now lost their jobs thereby losing access to private drug insurance programmes. If Canada already had universal Pharmacare, Canadians would be far better off in this current crisis… This begs the question of who is advocating for a national universal Pharmacare program within the current Liberal government… A coalition of the willing in Parliament, followed by a coalition of the willing among the provinces and territories that will eventually come to include them all.

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Ottawa boosts aid package to students, pledges incentives to find work

Thursday, April 30th, 2020

Under the program, post-secondary students, recent graduates and those headed to school in the fall are eligible to get monthly payments of $1,250 a month between May and August. It also promises up to $5,000 for students who volunteer… The government agreed to increase the monthly payments to those with dependants and disabilities by $250 to $2,000 a month… The government agreed to implement new financial incentives and measures to “connect Canadians, particularly students and Canadian youth, to the various jobs available.”

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Posted in Delivery System, Equality Debates | No Comments »


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