Earlier this week, the Centre for Research on Inner City Health released a report linking patient incomes to types of admissions to hospitals in the Toronto Central LHIN. The report found that people with low and high incomes in Toronto are hospitalized for different reasons: More high income patients received same-day surgeries than low income […]
Economic inequality
Bill 77 Fairness For Employees Act: A Submission To The Standing Committee On Regulation And Private Bills
Addressing increased inequality in Ontario is a major public policy challenge. No one policy intervention on its own will be sufficient. Increasing access to unionization for Ontarians is a step in the right direction. The proposed amendments to the OLRA are very modest. They will not require increased government expenditures. These amendments do, however, have […]
Continue ReadingBill 77 Fairness For Employees Act: A Submission To The Standing Committee On Regulation And Private Bills Download PublicationBill 77 Fairness For Employees Act: A Submission To The Standing Committee On Regulation And Private Bills
Latest CMHC numbers confirm federal housing cuts will grow deeper as housing needs grow
The latest corporate report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the federal government’s housing agency, confirms that the two-decade erosion of federal affordable housing investments is continuing to grow worse. The corporate report from CMHC includes actual results from 2008 to 20010, and plans or estimates for 2011 to 2016. The latest numbers show that federal housing […]
Wilkinson says that equality is still better for everyone, and it’s time to act
Many of us today at the Wellesley Institute were fortunate to catch Richard Wilkinson’s lecture, courtesy of MASS LBP and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. It reminded us of several things, including why the project of solving income inequality is so important, not only socially and economically, but […]
Continue ReadingWilkinson says that equality is still better for everyone, and it’s time to act
The “New Age” of Austerity
Austerity is bad for our health: Gender and distributional impacts of the Drummond recommendations.
Small steps are good, but services, jobs and equality are best for all
This afternoon an agreement was reached on the Ontario budget. Three major changes have been made: the introduction of a temporary increase in taxes for Ontarians earning more than $500,000 per year, an increase in rates for people who are surviving on social assistance, and increased funding for child care. It’s important to pause for […]
Continue ReadingSmall steps are good, but services, jobs and equality are best for all
Breaking down the barriers to employment
This morning’s Toronto Star includes a front page story about how Ontario’s employment training programs shut out half of the province’s unemployed. The problem is that strict eligibility criteria mean that Employment Ontario’s job training supports are only available to people who are receiving employment insurance benefits, and this excludes a large number of unemployed […]
Looking beyond cuts to solve city budget woes
Conversations about balancing city budgets often focus only on cutbacks to services or changes in tax rates, but thriving healthy cities need to have more than two solutions. Another solution is to increase intensification. Reading an interesting piece on the positive fiscal impacts of intensification is a nice change. This article by Emily Badger in […]
Continue ReadingLooking beyond cuts to solve city budget woes
One size user fees don’t fit all
Today’s edition of the Globe and Mail reports about community anger about new user fees for the use of Toronto’s municipal playing fields. The health promoting benefits of staying fit and active are well-established, but one-size-fits-all user fees can mean that people with low incomes are unable to access community recreation facilities, which can lead […]
PhDs for Fair Taxation? Sign Me Up
A group of leading community medicine and public health doctors have founded Doctors for Fair Taxation. They argue that physicians have become increasingly concerned about growing income inequality after seeing the consequences of poor and inequitable health daily in their practices. The response has been quick: over 200 doctors have already signed their petition calling […]