Posts Tagged ‘privatization’
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Harper’s fixes aren’t for the long term
Sunday, January 29th, 2012
Jan. 29, 2012
Harper’s pretty good at quick fixes like cutting red tape, cutting off parliamentary debate and cutting corners. He’s comfortable dealing with problems in the short term instead of tackling the more admittedly difficult causes of problems that might take a little longer and cost more to deal with. Filling jails with aboriginal youth does nothing for First Nations. Filling them with the mentally ill isn’t the way to make streets safe. Efficiency and decisiveness are to be admired in government. But Canada is more than a network of pipelines and a repository of riches waiting to be taken.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Mike Del Grande’s candid chat about social programs
Friday, January 13th, 2012
Jan 12 2012
Councillor Mike Del Grande, Mayor Rob Ford’s budget chief… described in blunt terms his “tough love” opposition to some city-funded social programs, including school meals for low-income kids… if you have children you’re responsible for children”… “why is it the state’s responsibility to look after your children?” … “I want to be responsible, I want to be fair, I want to be civic-minded. Yes, there are poor people in the world, okay, but poor people will be with us forever, like it’s been from the moment of time.”
Tags: budget, homelessness, housing, ideology, poverty, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
ORNGE air ambulance service now run by Ontario deputy minister
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Jan 11 2012
… top executives at ORNGE, which gets $150 million in taxpayers money a year, had set up a warren of for-profit companies in what they described as an attempt to “leverage” the public assets of a service that was created to fly sick and injured Ontario residents to hospital. Meanwhile… ORNGE was late to some emergency calls and failed to provide proper coverage in certain parts of the province… executives of the for-profit companies were called into boardrooms and told their services would no longer be needed.
Tags: budget, Health, privatization
Posted in Health Delivery System | 2 Comments »
Federal health role is about more than money
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Jan. 10, 2012
… known long-term funding and is more than provinces could have reasonably expected from the 2014 first ministers’ meeting. The principle behind the federal generosity is clear. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking Ottawa out of the health-care debate and ending the national discussion of health and health-care system issues that began with the original federal funding in the 1966 Medical Care Act and continued up to the 2004 wait times accord. But is this a good thing for Canada?… There are at least seven areas that require national policy leadership and federal attention:
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Pay at the top
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Jan. 05, 2012
There is no justification for anyone running a hospital to be paid two or three times more than Ontario’s Premier or even the Prime Minister (Hospitals Scrapping Executive Perks – Jan. 4). We need a law that limits public-sector salaries to those of the Premier ($200,000-plus)/Prime Minister ($300,000-plus), with the justification that everyone else’s job simply can’t be more rigorous than that of the top dog. Even at those lowered salaries, competent people would be lining up to apply. And when their over-the-top pensions kick in, taxpayers can keep paying them for many more years.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
How first nations can own their future
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Dec. 17, 2011
Truly progressive governments recognize individual property rights and enforce the rule of law, thus allowing people to reap the rewards of their initiatives. Individual property, voluntary yet enforceable contracts, open markets – these have been the holy trinity of economic progress in the Western world since the Industrial Revolution, and they are transforming China, India, Brazil and many other previously impoverished countries. The formula for progress is no different for first nations…
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, participation, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Ottawa proposes first nations property ownership
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Dec. 15, 2011
Conservative MPs are proposing… legislation that would allow natives to own private property within the communal land of reserves. The change… would mark a dramatic shift for individuals living on reserve. It would make it easier to accumulate wealth and to use homes as collateral when seeking bank loans to start businesses… about 10 communities out of the more than 600 first nation reserves in Canada that are ready to move in this direction… But Mr. Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations has previously… noted that AFN chiefs had rejected the concept of private property.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, privatization, rights
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Province needs child-care plan
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Dec 14 2011
Education Minister Laurel Broten says she won’t declare a moratorium on new for-profit child care because some communities don’t have any non-profit providers. The minister can’t just throw up her hands and declare it’s up to the market. If Ontario had a real plan for child care, municipal centres wouldn’t be gutted. If Ontario had a real plan for child care there would be planning in place that ensured decent access for families across the province. If Ontario had a real child-care system, big box companies wouldn’t be able to take advantage.
Tags: budget, child care, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Privatization threatens public health care, Romanow warns
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Nov 30 2011
Romanow decried a “palpable momentum toward individualism, decentralization and privatization” in Canada. He gave the example of a “meanness of spirit . . . that somehow finds money to buy defibrillators for hockey arenas, but drags its feet about providing potable water to First Nations communities” — and said the government’s “so-called new thinking” misguidedly frames health care as a commodity rather than a right.
Tags: budget, Health, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Canada’s never-ending medicare fight
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
Nov 29 2011
… two-tier medicine… simply shifts costs. Private-pay medicine may save governments money. But it provides no net savings to citizens who end up paying out of pocket for the same or worse health care… the Quebec government spends less in proportional terms on health care [but] it spends more in absolute terms on everything else… other countries have two-tier systems. But they don’t necessarily do any better. The Germans, Dutch and French, all of whom are praised by two-tier fans, spend more of their gross domestic product on health care than we do.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
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