A national newspaper referred to the “Sex-Ed problem”, regarding the ongoing curriculum dispute between the province and some parents. There is no Sex-Ed problem, there is an irresponsible parent problem. These parents are abdicating a responsibility to their children, to others as well, and it needs to stop. To parents who
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Defend Public Healthcare: Public sector employment in Ontario is far below the rest of Canada
The suggestion that Ontario has a deficit because its public sector is too large does not bear scrutiny. Consider the following. Public sector employment has fallen in the last three quarters in Ontario. Since 2011, public sector employment has been pretty flat, with employment up less than 4 tenths of one
Continue readingDefend Public Healthcare: Lowest health care funding increase ever?
Funding increase hits new low: The Ontario government plans health sector spending growth of 1.2% this year compared with the interim spending estimate for 2014/15. This deepens the trend to cut health care funding increases. ($000s) 2005-6 2006-7 2007-8 2008-9 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012–13 Actual 2013–14 Interim 2014–15 Plan 2015–16
Continue reading350 or bust: After the hottest year on record, here’s to 2015 being a year of radical climate action.
Happy New Year! * It’s now official – 2014 was the hottest year on record for this blue planet of ours. * * This is the year that science and good climate policy will trump denial and fossil fool intransigence. I’m lucky to live in the largest Canadian province, Ontario,
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Ontario’s answer to the deficit: 35 years of revenue cuts
In a recent long-term report on the economy, the Ontario government recognized that own-source Ontario government revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has declined over the last fifteen years. The decline is equal to 2 percentage points of the province’s GDP. That is more than $14 billion.
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Deficit? Public spending ain’t the cause. Revenue, however…
With the election over, pressure to cut public programs has become quite intense. In almost all of the corporate owned media someone is barking on about it. Another option — increasing revenue from the wealthy is not mentioned. However, data clearly indicates that Ontario does not have an overspending problem
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Rest of Canada spends 23% more on hospitals than Ontario
Provincial government hospital expenditure per person in Ontario compared to the rest of Canada based on CIHI data. A large gap has grown between what the Ontario provincial government spends on hospitals and what other Canadian provinces spend. Since 2004/5 the gap has grown from a mere $9.43 per person to
Continue readingEh Types: Why Do We Vote?
In a democracy there are almost as many reasons to vote as their are voters. Some vote out a sense of civic obligation, others vote so they can still feel entitled to complain about the results. For some one issue not only dictates why they vote but how they vote.
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Dear Ontario: Section 53 is not the answer!
If you go to your polling station on June 12th and decline your ballot, you have not voted for anyone, or anything. In fact, you have forfeited your right to vote and your vote has been suppressed. REMEMBER: Voter suppression is a strategy to influence the outcome of an election
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: PCs health care policy: cuts, privatization, mergers, and cuts
The PCs have developed two papers on health care policy, one dated September 2012 and another (which “builds on that foundation”) dated February 2013. Here are some key excerpts, with some commentary, starting with the 2012 paper, “Patient CentredHealth Care”. Terminate the LHINs and CCACs and turn their powers over
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: The lowdown on the PC plan for the public sector
Below are excerpts from the Progressive Conservative policy paper, “A New Deal for the Public Sector”. It contains some very radical ideas that go far beyond even what former PC premier Mike Harris implemented. Cut public spending: “To balance the budget, government spending must be cut. Just slowing the rate at
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: Supervised Injection In Toronto: Why The Discussion Has Screeched To A Halt
By Joe Fantauzzi @jjfantauzzi Drug use is a multifaceted issue in urban life. Addiction can take an enormous toll on individuals and can leave the municipalities in which those people live struggling to adequately service their needs as well as the needs of the community. Supervised injection facilities, in which
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: Temporary Foreign Workers: What Canada Must Do To Protect A Vulnerable Labour Class
By Joe Fantauzzi @jjfantauzziKey Findings and Recommendations:– Between 2003 and 2012, the number of temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada jumped from 102,932 to 213,573 — a difference of 107.5%.– Inquests are mandatory in Ontario when an on-the-job accident kills a worker employed at “a construction project, mining plant or mine, including
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: How Ontario public sector health care funding lags behind
The Ontario public sector spends less than almost all other provinces on health care. And it’s falling further behind. Over the most recent four years per capita spending increased 9.7% across Canada, but only 5.2% in Ontario. With this, the Ontario public sector spends less per person than any other province
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: Ontario: A leading jurisdiction for intense, coercive neoliberalism
By Joe Fantauzzi@jjfantauzzi Global capitalism has liberalized incrementally since the end of the Second World War. As the Keynesian welfare state fell out of favour in the late 1970s amid a stagnating economy and rising government spending, a new business-friendly approach dubbed neoliberalism (literally, “new liberalism”), emerged and ushered in
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Provincial public sector wage increases less than private sector for fourth year
For the fourth consecutive year in a row, wage settlements in the broader provincial public sector (i.e. public sector workers, like hospital employees, who do not work for federal or municipal governments) fell below the wage settlements in the private sector. In 2013, provincial public sector wage settlements averaged about
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: The Toronto G20 Summit: A State of Exception
By Joe Fantauzzi@jjfantauzziBetween June 26 and 27, 2010, thousands of demonstrators[1] descended on Toronto, Ontario to protest while the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies[2] met behind a protective fence built of steel and secretive legislative authority. When the tear gas cleared and the G20 Summit ended, 1,105 people had been
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: Locating Canada’s State Multiculturalism As A Racist Doctrine
By Joe Fantauzzi@jjfantauzziCanada is a multicultural nation. More than four decades of policy, legislation and celebration have engraved this country’s pluralism into its national character. The ethnic diversity of this country is presented globally as a fundamental strength of the Canadian nation. But massive structural inequalities which have not been
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Disappointment with the Ontario Liberal Party lack of social media communication
The OLP has a convention next week, if you weren’t aware. It’s their annual general meeting – the one that was originally going to be held in London, but got moved to Toronto due to speculated Spring Election concerns. Several bloggers (myself included) of the Liberal persuasion (Ontario or Federal)
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: No Federal Childcare Program: An Exercise In Strengthening Hegemony
Canada, a nation among the wealthiest in the world, cannot meet its daycare needs. The problem has grown to crisis proportions in the country’s largest cities. In Toronto there are only enough daycare spaces for about one in five of the city’s children.[1] In downtown
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