Posts Tagged ‘ideology’

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Surrendering to the provinces doesn’t bring peace to the federation. It only emboldens them

Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

The thesis… that peace with the provinces is the highest aim of federal policy, and that the way to achieve it is to give them everything they want – or at least to never give them any offence – is a recipe for national paralysis. There are issues on which federal leadership is essential… how we got here [is] not because the federal government has been too hard on the provinces, but because it has been altogether too indulgent of them.

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Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »


Welfare rates now $200 a month below the Harris cuts of 1995

Saturday, January 6th, 2024

… inflation over two PC tenures since Bill Davis and Frank Miller has risen 35.2 per cent with no increases to Ontario Works and a total of just 12 per cent for ODSP. The last PC Premier to raise OW rates was Bill Davis 39 years ago in 1985… The cumulative effect of multidecade inaction — whether on housing or climate change — is now coming home to roost. Just look at food bank usage.

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Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »


Home care reforms don’t address poor working conditions

Saturday, December 16th, 2023

The almost entirely female – and, in Toronto, mostly racialized – home care personal support workers expect more of the same: low wages, irregular work, few benefits, and almost no pensions. Recent reforms to home care will not resolve chronic problems of poor working conditions, fragmentation of services, and an inefficient delivery model…

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Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »


What Ontario’s chronic underfunding of education looks like

Saturday, December 16th, 2023

School boards across the province are sounding the alarm over their slashed budgets and serious staffing shortages because boards can no longer afford to pay proper living wages to attract and retain staff. And it looks like increasing violence in the classroom due to inadequate staffing and a lack of qualified, caring adults in the building. But every single one of these issues is preventable.

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Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »


Canada is rolling out its dental care program.

Monday, December 11th, 2023

The program will be phased in, starting with seniors. Eligible Canadians aged 87 and above can start applying this month. Those aged 77 to 86 can start applying in January 2024, followed by those aged 72 to 76 in February. If you’re between the ages of 70 and 71, you can apply in March… Starting in May 2024, applications will move to an online portal, and will open up to seniors aged 65 and up. In June, anyone with a valid Disability Tax Credit certificate, and eligible youth under 18, can also begin applying online. Everyone else meeting the criteria can apply online in 2025.

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Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »


Health care is the Ontario government’s job one. Shouldn’t they be better at it?

Thursday, December 7th, 2023

… this year’s reports on the health-care system are a reminder that spending less is not the same thing as spending well and that, in some cases at least, you need to spend more public money to fix important policy problems. Ontario may be training a record number of nurses, but if we want them to stay in this province, we’ll likely need to pay them more than we currently do — not least because Ontario currently pays nurses less than does any other province… for all the billions of dollars that the government taxes and spends to keep the system running

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Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »


Hospitals plagued by staff shortages and ER closures under Ford government, auditor general finds

Wednesday, December 6th, 2023

Plagued by shortages of doctors and nurses and persistent emergency room closures, Ontario lacks a province-wide strategy to fix the problems, the watchdog agency said in a wide-ranging audit of government performance… The worsening staff shortages have been fuelled by the Ford government’s Bill 124, which limited nurses and many other public sector workers to maximum annual pay hikes of one per cent, the auditor found.

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Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »


Time to hit the rich with a wealth tax

Thursday, November 30th, 2023

… in their budget last March, the Liberals proclaimed they were “ensuring the wealthiest Canadians pay their fair share,” as they brought in income tax changes that will raise another $525 million a year from high-income earners. But these changes will have little impact on the wealthiest Canadians, who are largely able to avoid income taxes. To tax the truly wealthy – and only them — a wealth tax is far more effective… A wealth tax would apply exclusively to those with net assets of more than $10 million…

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Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »


Ford government’s bottomless determination to convert our drinking into private profit should concern us all

Wednesday, November 29th, 2023

… making alcohol cheaper and easier to purchase unsurprisingly leads to higher levels of drinking and increases in harm… Our drinking is big business — almost $10 billion a year — and multiple players are fighting to grab a larger slice of that pie. And while the industry winners may be about to waltz off with a record windfall, the likely losers — the Ontario taxpayers — may be left to deal with increasing social and health harms, all on a shrinking budget.

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Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »


Toronto is getting a fourth emergency service. That’s vital for helping people in crisis

Wednesday, November 29th, 2023

The service, which offers a non-police, community-based response to people experiencing mental health crises… will soon cover the entire city… Police are, after all, not trained mental health professionals, and police involvement has all too often ended in tragedy. In contrast, 93 per cent of the crisis calls were successfully completed, and 95 per cent of people served by crisis teams said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the service.

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Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »


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