Posts Tagged ‘jurisdiction’
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 »
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 »
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 »
Ontario’s closure of youth detention facilities has not resulted in more support for young people
Sunday, September 29th, 2024
The move to shift youth in the justice system away from confinement and towards community is a positive one. However, without investment in community-based service providers to support youth being transitioned out of custodial settings, it is unlikely that youth will thrive. Such failures are likely to increase acute mental health crises and demands on ambulatory care within general medicine and psychiatric hospitals… [and] increase the number of youth who will come into conflict with the criminal legal system as adults.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, Indigenous, jurisdiction, poverty, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | 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 »
Doug Ford wants to stop doctors from handing out clean needles. Here’s why they shouldn’t listen
Monday, September 16th, 2024
The government’s plans include prohibiting provincially funded community health centres with consumption services from distributing clean needles and providing safer supply of opioids and other prescriptions. The government alleges that needle distribution and safer supply threaten community safety and are ineffective ways to treat substance dependent people. The government is wrong on both counts… public health is protected by providing clean needles… and the prescribing of opioids reduces overdose-related mortality.
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Six key takeaways from Welfare in Canada, 2023
Monday, September 16th, 2024
Total welfare incomes were deeply inadequate across Canada in 2023. Increases to social assistance benefits between 2018 and 2023 were uneven across jurisdictions. Very few jurisdictions have indexed benefits and tax credits to inflation as of 2023… Provinces and territories should invest in higher social assistance benefits and tax-delivered income supports. Governments at all levels should index all social assistance benefits and tax-delivered benefits or credits to inflation where they don’t already do so.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
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