Posts Tagged ‘standard of living’
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When mental-health diagnoses become brands, the real drivers of our psychic pain are hidden
Monday, September 15th, 2025
The mental-illness health epidemic is growing alongside a crisis of economy and political legitimacy in Western societies. The distress and insecurity produced becomes another source of profiteering in the marketized economy where personhood is socially produced through individualized consumption… this enables distraction from social causes of distress such as poverty, inadequate housing, social injustice, discrimination, exclusion, and chronic financial insecurity; alongside militarism, and appalling levels of violence inflicted by governments on global citizens they control (or try to control).
Tags: featured, housing, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
How Rich Canadians Got Even Richer
Monday, August 25th, 2025
During the first quarter of 2025, the top 40 per cent of Canadian households captured 66.2 per cent of all after-tax income in Canada. The bottom 40 per cent shared just 17.2 per cent of income. It was a record gap, up 11.9 per cent from four years ago… Statistics Canada highlights two main factors driving inequality. First, high-income households saw huge gains from property income — money made from investments in real estate, stocks and other assets. And second, the compensation for Canada’s highest earners is rising much faster than the salaries and wages of other Canadians.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Should back-to-school require parent fundraising? Ontario schools are woefully underfunded, and families pay the price
Tuesday, August 5th, 2025
Taking over boards can be seen as a distraction tactic as the government is asking them to meet growing needs with fewer resources. Instead of increasing funding, which is necessary and long overdue, the government is likely to cut costs in the short term by privatizing services, a trajectory researchers have documented for some time. These shifts to the private sector are shortsighted attempts to balance a budget that only serve to raise the taxpayer burden over time.
Tags: budget, Education, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Home-care in Ontario can’t keep up — and it’s getting worse
Thursday, July 31st, 2025
… funding home-care is costly, but Ontario cannot afford the alternative. The average per-day cost of home-care is $103. That same per-day cost for long-term care is $201 and a staggering $730 for alternate level care. More importantly, home-care supports what 95 per cent of Ontarians say they want — to remain in their homes as they age.
Tags: budget, Home Care, privatization, Seniors, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Why do we keep letting Canada’s ultrarich use tax havens to stash wealth?
Friday, July 25th, 2025
The Tax Justice Network has estimated that international tax abuse costs Canada about $15-billion in revenue every year. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that’s enough to fund both our new dental care program and a single-payer universal national pharmacare program… Mr. Carney needs to end a near-universally loathed loophole that only the wealthiest people and largest corporations in Canada can take advantage of…
Tags: budget, economy, featured, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Why a bad deal on tariffs with Donald Trump is worse than no deal
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025
… trying to portray a deal with continued tariffs as some kind of “victory” for Canada, because the stated tariff may seem lower than other countries, is dangerously wishful… It would unilaterally disarm Canada’s ability to respond to U.S. actions with counter-tariffs or nontariff measures. It would cement U.S. tariffs as a “new normal” — and thus unleash a flood of capital away from Canada… It would sabotage nascent efforts with other countries to build a co-ordinated global response to Trump, by surrendering before a united front can take shape.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
A shrinking population is hardly what this country needs right now
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025
Are wages stagnant? Are houses overpriced? Is the health care system overburdened? It must be because of all those pesky people: the “overpopulation” and “crowding”… [But] Population growth has already slowed to a trickle… The problem… is not that we have too many people: it is that we have too little capital, and too little incentive to make efficient use of the capital we have. Fixing those ought to be our priority
Tags: economy, Health, housing, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers would add 30K annual housing starts: CMHC
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
A new analysis by the national housing agency estimates Canada could add 30,000 more housing starts annually by eliminating interprovincial trade barriers… that prevent the movement of either resources or labour in the residential construction industry… The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has estimated that existing internal trade hurdles cost the economy some $200 billion a year.
Tags: economy, housing, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
Statistics Canada says income gap hit record high in first quarter
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
… the difference in the share of disposable income between households in the top 40 per cent of the income distribution and the bottom 40 per cent grew to 49 percentage points in the first three months of the year… For the first quarter of 2025, it said the increase came as the highest income households gained from investments, while the lowest income households saw wages decline… “This kind of information, the largest gap ever, it’s a wake-up call…”
Tags: economy, participation, standard of living
Posted in Equality History | No Comments »
This confidential report reveals Ontario is spending millions to warehouse kids under Children’s Aid care in hotels and other unlicensed settings
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
Ontario is spending millions of dollars a year to warehouse vulnerable kids in hotels, shelters and other unlicensed settings that child welfare agencies are turning to amid a provincewide shortage of treatment options for kids with complex health needs… The use of these placements has soared over the past three years… putting unprecedented strain on children’s aid societies and leaving many kids in unstable or dangerous living arrangements where they are being contained rather than treated.
Tags: budget, child care, homelessness, jurisdiction, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
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