Posts Tagged ‘jurisdiction’
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Migrant workers make our agricultural industry viable. Why do we treat them as disposable?
Monday, March 21st, 2022
Employers — who are supposed to pay for the consequences of workplace injuries and disease — instead benefit financially from the WSIB’s discriminatory policies. Employers are getting richer on the backs of injured workers. This year, the government has decided to give a $1.5 billion rebate to employers, rather than support injured workers.
Tags: disabilities, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
There’s a fix to disinformation: Make social media algorithms transparent
Thursday, March 17th, 2022
In the period of newspaper and broadcast dominance, anyone could find out what news their neighbours were consuming just by opening the paper or turning on the TV. In the social media era, many of those interactions are dark. The solution is algorithmic transparency. But this is easier said than done, because the algorithms are the special sauce in the platforms… So far, lawmakers have listened politely, but not acted.
Tags: featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Doug Ford’s government is quietly privatizing health care
Wednesday, March 16th, 2022
Recently, Health Minister Christine Elliott announced the expansion of private hospitals in Ontario… “we can let independent health facilities operate private hospitals.”… [which] sounds a whole lot better than this: “We will award public funds to private, for-profit hospitals and clinics, knowing that these private facilities are associated with worse care, higher costs and more deaths.”
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Tuition should be free. Anything else imposes a regressive barrier to accessing higher education
Friday, March 11th, 2022
In 1990, just before Mike Harris unleashed his “common sense revolution,” roughly 20 per cent of Ontario universities’ operating income came from tuition. That figure is now more than 50 per cent, which means Ontario is well on its way to privatizing higher education… the federal government also contributes to inequitable access… An RESP is essentially a federal handout to the upper-middle classes — and the banks and markets that end up receiving those monies.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Long banned in Ontario, private hospitals could soon reappear
Thursday, March 10th, 2022
… with the chaos created by COVID as a cover, the Ford government seems poised to allow a considerable expansion of private health care in the province… a dramatic development, allowing hospitals — the centrepieces of our health-care system — to be governed by corporate boards that prioritize profits, as in the U.S… private hospitals would undermine medicare by enabling well-to-do patients to gain faster access to treatment.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Health-care unions call Ontario’s one-time $5K offer to nurses ‘demoralizing’
Tuesday, March 8th, 2022
The healthcare unions, which represent a combined 220,000 workers across Ontario, said in their letter that the shortage “requires urgent action to better respect, protect, and pay all healthcare workers.” They say that should begin with repealing Bill 124. That legislation was introduced in 2019, and capped annual salary increases for many public sector employees, including nurses, at an average of one per cent annually for three years.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, pensions, women
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
With deadline looming, why hasn’t Ontario signed a child-care deal yet?
Monday, March 7th, 2022
Morna Ballantyne, executive director of Child Care Now, said Ontario’s funding of full-day junior kindergarten is irrelevant. “The idea is to use this federal money to build on what already exists,” she said. “If Ontario wants to argue that the federal government should pay a share of public education, then they should make that proposal.”… Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said the $27.2 billion the Liberals have budgeted for the Canada-wide program would not be enough to meet expected demand.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario’s new gig-work bill might as well be written on DoorDash letterhead
Monday, March 7th, 2022
The Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act may look as if it’s intended to bring app-based employers in line — but it’s not the change we need… Changing the law to define these workers as employees would obviate the need for any of these proposed changes. It would enshrine the rights of these workers along with those of everyone else.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Don’t be fooled by Ontario’s ‘minimum wage’ for gig workers
Friday, March 4th, 2022
Ontario’s manipulative ‘minimum wage’ is an attempt to forestall genuine legislative and regulatory changes… workers at gig platforms already have the right to unionize through normal channels, and achieve genuine collective bargaining rights—they don’t need any special ‘law’, just clarification that they are indeed workers (whether employees or dependent contractors) not independent businesses.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
COVID-19 has highlighted — not caused — current health care problems in Canada
Tuesday, March 1st, 2022
… Canada is now 51st in the world in doctors per population. Our world ranking in the ’70s had varied between fourth and eighth… Despite our limiting the supply of care, total health spending in Canada was estimated by the Canadian Institute for Health Information to be $308 billion in 2021 ($8,019 per Canadian) representing 12.7 per cent of Canada’s GDP. This ranks among the highest in the world.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »