Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Krugman highlights how work requirements and other barriers to social benefits serve only to needlessly increase poverty without improving employment rates. And Patricia Cohen writes about the growing gap between soaring profits and eroding wage gains in the U.S., while Irina Ivanova
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Martin Regg Cohn writes that reducing access to pharmacare is just the first item on Doug Ford’s extensive hidden agenda. And Steve Morgan examines the effects of Ford’s cuts to public prescription drug coverage and finds that the end result of relying more
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Enzo Dimatteo offers a reminder of Toronto’s disastrous experience with the Ford governance model, while Edward Keenan worries that Doug Ford is eager to run roughshod over the city if he gets the chance. PressProgress tallies up the large number of Ontario PC
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Martin Lukacs offers a reminder that Doug Ford is nothing but a mercenary for his fellow children of privilege, while Andrea Horwath’s NDP actually offers a platform which will benefit the 99%. And Michal Rozworski observes that Ontario’s election is properly focusing on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Dana Brown and Thomas Hanna discuss the possibility of a public option for access to medication in the U.S. And while the Winnipeg Free Press warns that Brian Pallister might want to stand in the way of a national pharmacare program, that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin writes that greed is the only reason why we haven’t yet completed a full health care system with a pharmacare program: If we had a universal pharmacare plan — one that saves lives and relieves suffering — it would cost
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Tom Parkin discusses the need for a new Tommy Douglas to start leading the way toward national social programs – and the hope that Andrea Horwath can earn that role in Ontario’s provincial election: Since Douglas’s time, Canadian health care has been
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sunil Johal and Armine Yalnizyan discuss the importance of building an economy based on a race to the top in labour and environmental standards, rather than the pursuit of the lowest common denominator. – Kevin Corinth and Claire Rossi-de Vries examine the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Oleg Komlik takes note of Wade Cole’s research showing how income inequality affects political dynamics. And Hannah Finnie recognizes that young people are joining unions (among other forms of social activism) in order to gain some much-needed influence on both fronts, while Paul
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Quirks & Quarks examines the potentially devastating effects of a dilbit spill on British Columbia’s coast. And David Climenhaga warns that Kinder Morgan is looking at NAFTA to provide it an alternate source of risk-free profits at public expense. – Mia Rabson reports
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Constant discusses a new study showing that the positive effects of minimum wage increases for low-income workers actually grow over time. And Sheila Block highlights how a $15 increased minimum wage stands to offer far more to workers than Doug Ford’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the need for real wage increases to relieve the financial stress on Canadian workers. – Sheila Block examines the relative effects of tax cuts and minimum wage increases on lower-income workers, and finds that people are far better off
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Martha Friendly, Susan Prentice and Morna Ballantyne discuss how universal child care is a necessary element of any serious push toward equality for women. Dennis Grunding notes that it will take a concerted public effort to secure the universal pharmacare program Canadians want
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Noortje Uphoff writes about the long-term effects of growing up in poverty and the resulting stress on a child: Our childhood affects our health across the course of our lives. Stress, it seems, is a major contributor. While a life lived with
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Grand Plan of Obfuscation: A Guest Post
In response to Saturday’s post about the increasing momentum of the neoliberal creep evident in the Trudeau government, frequent commentator BM offered his detailed take on this sorry situation: It’s all part of the Grand Plan of Obfuscation. Put in a haphazard system of Pharmacare, so that no citizen knows
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barry Eidlin and Micah Uetricht offer a reminder that the role of unions goes beyond securing higher wages, to giving workers a voice in workplace governance. And Eric Blanc interviews Jay O’Neal about the sorely-needed sense of agency earned by West Virginia’s teachers
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Star Readers Are Not Impressed
Star readers can spot a corrupt policy process when they see one, an acuity they make known as they opine on Bill Morneau’s pharmacare plans: Morneau’s unwise decision to backtrack pharmacare, Walkom, March 2 Every parent knows this: If you aren’t really going to take your kids to the zoo,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Neoliberal Creep – An Update
I’m not sure what I find more offensive. Is it the fact that Bill Morneau, despite all that he has said about his limited vision regarding pharmacare, is apparently lying when he now says he is open to all ideas regarding a national drug-coverage program? Or is it that he
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. -Tom Parkin laments the timidity of the Libs’ budget, while recognizing the opportunities it creates for the NDP: Over $7 billion in infrastructure investment, the cornerstone of the Liberals 2015 election appeal, was cut and pushed past the next election — despite the sorry
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: It’s Going To Be Awhile
In Tuesday’s budget, the Liberals announced the beginnings of a national pharmacare program. But, later in the week, Bill Morneau told the Economic Club of Canada, “We need a strategy … that deals with the gaps but doesn’t throw out the system that we currently have.” That gap is glaringly
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