Posts Tagged ‘ideology’
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Carney government makes long-awaited move to restrict social media access for children
Friday, June 12th, 2026
The Carney Liberals have introduced a revamped online harms bill that would restrict access to social media for those under 16, make AI chatbots safer, and impose new rules on digital platforms… The bill does not lay out what those safeguards must be, but suggests that some of the criteria platforms must meet could include special accounts designed for children, parental controls, and other unspecified design features… measures to reduce the addictive nature of social media and deploying safe search settings.
Tags: crime prevention, Education, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, youth
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 41 Comments »
Debt by design: OSAP and the political economy of student aid in Canada
Tuesday, May 26th, 2026
… students in Ontario are being asked to shoulder a growing share of the cost of post-secondary education. While these changes may appear exceptional, they are not. Instead, they reflect a broader transformation in how post-secondary education is funded across Canada, where the costs have steadily shifted from the public to the individual… restoring OSAP alone will not make post-secondary education truly affordable. That requires a broader commitment to public investment, and in turn, that means raising the province’s revenue.
Tags: budget, Education, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, tax, youth
Posted in Education Policy Context | 155 Comments »
Doug Ford cited abuse of OSAP as one reason for its overhaul. Here’s what new data actually shows
Sunday, May 17th, 2026
“They’re using these allegations as a way to justify gutting the financial assistance”… “What students are seeing is a government using a very limited number of cases to rationalize broader austerity measures in post-secondary education. The impact of these decisions are being felt by ordinary students who are now expected to graduate with deeper debt in a province where employment is not guaranteed.
Tags: budget, Education, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Education Policy Context | 21 Comments »
New Ontario water and sanitation law could pave the way for the financialization of public water
Wednesday, May 13th, 2026
Whether the WCA leads to outright privatization, its proposed reforms are consistent with an insidious global push to make municipal water and sanitation systems more amenable to private investment. This essentially transforms them into tradeable assets. This process, known as financialization, would erode the public health and social mandate of public water infrastructure, undermining the capacity of communities to cope with growing ecological and financial stresses.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | 41 Comments »
Toronto will host the world’s investors this fall. But will any investment end up in health care, education or transit?
Wednesday, May 6th, 2026
What’s most disappointing about the prevailing preoccupation with making Canada an industrial and energy superpower is that this vision of Canada’s future ignores necessary investments in social goods — namely, health care, education, affordable housing and public transit. All of those are essential to Canada’s future prosperity. And all are underfunded… Striving for greater industrial sovereignty is a worthwhile ambition. But it can’t come at the expense of social investments that underpin Canadians’ well-being.
Tags: budget, Education, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | 31 Comments »
To improve literacy, Ontario should invest in students and educators
Friday, May 1st, 2026
Even when screening tools are efficient and well-designed, teachers often lack the time, class-size conditions and specialist support needed to respond meaningfully to the results… Ontario stands at a familiar crossroads: keep reaching for solutions that are quick to purchase and easy to measure, or do the harder work of building lasting public capacity… [through] smaller primary classes, restored specialist support, rich early language environments and teacher education grounded in deep literacy expertise.
Tags: budget, Education, ideology, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
If you’re treading water on welfare in Doug Ford’s Ontario, you’re slowly sinking
Monday, April 27th, 2026
By the end of this budget’s 2026-27 fiscal year, the projected inflation rate of two per cent will have further eroded the purchasing power of Ontario Works payments by more than 22 per cent cumulatively, since 2018… it’s worth remembering that the high water mark for welfare was in 1993… If that figure were indexed to inflation today, it would be $1,303 a month, some $570 (78 per cent) more than the current rate of $733 under Ford’s Tories.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | 4 Comments »
Coercion isn’t care, and new laws that enforce treatment and confinement are dangerous
Monday, April 27th, 2026
Coercion is articulated as care and involuntary treatment is presented not as a restriction of liberty but as a necessary response to incapacity and risk. This appeal to compassion functions as a unifying political language, enabling cross-partisan support despite differing ideological stances. By portraying these policies as pragmatic, humane and long overdue, policymakers limit opposition. They also reconfigure the boundaries of acceptable state intervention…
Tags: Health, ideology, mental Health, rights
Posted in Health Policy Context | 5 Comments »
What Pierre Poilievre Doesn’t Get About His Economic Hero
Monday, April 27th, 2026
Poilievre presents justice — fairness, poverty reduction, the well-being of those left behind — as something that markets produce incidentally when they are left alone. The claim is that free markets lifted billions out of poverty; therefore the path forward is more free markets, fewer regulations, lower taxes, more oil and gas. But this framing depends on a separation of efficiency and justice that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s push for secrecy is putting the health of Ontarians at risk
Monday, April 13th, 2026
It’s Ontarians who bear the consequences when governments grant themselves the power to be unaccountable. It’s Ontarians who endure longer ER and surgical wait times. It’s Ontarians who are left wondering where their tax dollars have gone — as leaders secretly spend public funds… Here’s what Ontario should be doing: Legislate bans on FOI carve-outs so politicians cannot simply write themselves out of oversight… Secrecy breaks the basic social contract — not only of health care, but of democracy itself.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | 8 Comments »
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