Posts Tagged ‘ideology’
Ontario taxpayers fork over $4.3 million to settle legal costs in Bill 124 cases
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024
In a 2-1 decision earlier this year, the Appeal Court struck down the law, saying it infringed on workers’ Charter rights. The province accepted defeat and, soon after, repealed the law in its entirety… The province has so far paid out $6.7 billion for retroactive pay increases to broader public-sector workers after the law was struck down. Taxpayers would have been on the hook for those salary bumps either way, but the additional legal costs were a waste of money, leaders of the opposition parties said.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
Fully Indexing Ontario Social Assistance is Long Overdue
Monday, October 7th, 2024
October 1 was the six-year anniversary of the last inflation adjustment for Ontario’s social assistance payments. Their real value has steadily eroded ever since, made worse by inflation’s recent return… The lack of indexation of Ontario social assistance benefit levels has eroded the value of these benefits significantly and contributed to rising homelessness, hunger, and demand for social and health services. It is time to introduce a more economically efficient and fairer way of adjusting these benefits on a regular basis.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
What’s behind Canada’s housing crisis? Experts break down the different factors at play
Friday, October 4th, 2024
The market is most likely to respond to the housing needs of those with strong purchasing power, leaving behind low and moderate income families whose housing needs cannot generate effective market demand. The consequence is growing housing inequality, with many low-income families trapped in precarious living conditions… De-commodifying and de-financializing housing is key. This means expanding community housing, prioritizing community-based solutions and ensuring long-term security for all.
Tags: economy, homelessness, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
This is why you need the CBC
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
Public media can lead the way in charting a course for all media to use AI ethically, and in ways that diminish rather than contribute to the flow of misinformation… developing and testing ways to encourage civil online conversations as an antidote to the harmful, toxic online discourses that are fed by misinformation and disinformation.
Tags: globalization, ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ford’s bungling of Ontario’s nursing shortage is aimed at undermining public health care
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
… staff shortages and long wait-lists in Ontario are problems that were greatly exacerbated by Ford’s mishandling of the nursing crisis. Could it be that the dissatisfaction with our health-care system may be best solved — not by introducing a lot of private, profit-making clinics — but simply by paying nurses good wages within the public system?
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
We’re doctors. This is the glaring hole we see in our national health care conversation
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
Eliminating out-of-pocket costs for medications used to treat diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory conditions would result in 220,000 fewer ER visits and 90,000 less hospital stays annually, saving the health care system $1.2 billion a year… Unaffordable drugs invoke worry, helplessness and dread and creates a potentially damaging dependency. Granted, it’s difficult to assign a savings to the emotional costs currently being paid, but it’s intellectually dishonest to not even mention them.
Tags: disabilities, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Doctors want to practice medicine. Instead, we are buried in paperwork
Monday, September 30th, 2024
Administrative burden is a catch-all term to describe all the work a family physician does each day that does not include seeing patients… on average, a family doctor spends 19 hours per week on administrative and clerical tasks. Is it any wonder that recent reports state that medical students don’t want to be family doctors? In fact, 94 per cent of family doctors report feeling overwhelmed with this burden and as a result, some even close their practices…
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s inaction has left Ontario’s most vulnerable without a fighting chance
Monday, September 30th, 2024
The province… has ignored Ontario Works, while continuing to index many other things such as child benefits, income taxes and the minimum wage, for example. It also increased Ontario Disability Support Program amounts in 2022 and commenced indexing in 2023. The Guaranteed Annual Income System – a program aimed at low-income seniors – started indexing in 2023… Yet here we are with OW recipients suffering under a rising cost of living while the government watches from a distance.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Only the United States benefits from renegotiating the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal
Monday, September 30th, 2024
Ideologically, the U.S. is no longer the free-trade champion it was… concessions are highly unlikely to convince the U.S. — regardless of which party is in power — to surrender the most potent weapon it has in its arsenal to pressure its neighbours to adopt its preferred policies. Policy reform, simply put, leads to U.S. market access… The 2018 CUSMA didn’t preserve free trade in North America. It signalled its demise and the return of power politics to our most important economic relationship.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Addressing the Crisis in Access to Primary to Primary Care: A Targeted Approach
Sunday, September 29th, 2024
… a major cause for the dysfunction is the reluctance of provincial governments to undertake institutional reforms, for fear of provoking interest groups – particularly physicians’ organizations. The provinces have not made major changes to their health delivery systems since forced to do so by the deficit crises of the 1990s… The author recommends… an aggressive increase in the number of nurse practitioners working in community primary care, usually in multi-discipline clinics; and… rostering patients and expanding capitation in multi-discipline clinics.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
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