Posts Tagged ‘Health’

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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.

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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,”

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Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »


COVID-19 could change the way we feed Canadians

Monday, July 6th, 2020

In responding to the challenges brought on by COVID-19, government, food producers, and the charities that support Canadians with food came together with unprecedented urgency ­–­ and now is not the time to lose the progress we’ve made… The most effective interventions during this crisis have been the boldest ones – the system-wide changes that strike at the heart of the problem, instead of efforts that tinker around the margins.

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Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »


Ontario Provides Additional Funding to Support Municipalities and Urban Indigenous Community Partners

Friday, July 3rd, 2020

Municipalities and urban Indigenous community partners will be able to use this funding for long-term, innovative housing solutions resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. They can renovate shelters or purchase new facilities that will help with physical distancing in the short term and support longer-term, more sustainable solutions to homelessness… to provide vulnerable people with food, shelter and supplies.

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Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »


Why we need to start spending on infrastructure, and fast

Thursday, July 2nd, 2020

The money lost by underemployed workers, businesses and governments is unlikely to be fully recovered… the longer we wait, the more assets permanently lose value… the effects of the pandemic on the economy will invariably reduce the ability of Canadians to finance the services and infrastructure they previously expected – a perverse dynamic that will only worsen with the duration of underemployment.

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Defining disability for social assistance in Ontario: Options for moving forward

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

A stable and well-functioning social support system for people with disabilities in financial need will be crucial during and after the crisis. This report explores the role of ODSP, the risks of narrowing the definition of disability, models of disability assessment from other jurisdictions, and alternative ways that the government could reform the program… A simplified assessment system would save time and money for applicants, medical professionals, legal clinics, adjudicators, and the Social Benefits Tribunal.

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Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »


New report shows why a basic income makes sense during COVID-19 recovery

Monday, June 29th, 2020

… Canada should adapt a progressive version of basic income, similar to how the country’s Old Age Security and child benefit programs are calculated. Essentially, your basic income cheque increases and decreases depending on how much other income you make… the country can pay for basic income — either through existing tax programs, or with a new wealth tax, or by increasing sales tax slightly… “It gives people both the security and the flexibility to manoeuvre through transitions”

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Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »


Ontario to fully fund nursing homes despite lower occupancies

Wednesday, June 24th, 2020

Restricting admissions to single- and double-occupancy rooms will exacerbate a chronic shortage of long-term care beds in Ontario… the government’s ban on new admissions to ward rooms will eliminate 4,303 beds, representing 5.5 per cent of the province’s total… those who no longer need acute care but have nowhere else to go, reached a historic high of 5,300 as of Monday.

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Posted in Health Delivery System | 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”

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Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »


We need to take Canada’s approach to drug addiction and burn it to the ground

Friday, June 19th, 2020

… as policies go, prohibition and jail time have been utter failures as deterrents. Mr. Perrin, the author of Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada’s Opioid Crisis, released this year, says politics – fear of a backlash from the electorate – have made our leaders afraid to do the right thing… this has allowed “an unregulated criminal underworld to dictate what is in the drugs that people are taking, forcing those people to play Russian roulette”

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Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »


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