| Our living standards, EI & social assistance, and the cost of food to the poor |
|
| News |
|
John Stapleton of Open Policy Ontario has produced the following articles comprising of a mediation of our living standards, EI and socail assistance, and the cost of food to the poor. TRADING PLACES: Single Adults Replace Lone Parents as the New Face of Social Assistance in Canada (PDF) From 1990 to 1996, dramatic changes to Employment Insurance (EI) legislation profoundly altered the face of those on welfare in Canada. Equally important cutbacks to social assistance across Canada were made from 1993 to 2001, starting first in Alberta and ending in British Columbia. EI has become a much smaller benefit program than in the past. Read more ... Turn out the Lights: A compelling, anti-tax narrative is fuelling a grand dismantling of our living standards. Is there a progressive narrative to counter it? (PDF) Stephen Hayward recently analyzed an American city’s close brush with the cancellation of basic utilities – the things that define our collective standard of living. This was in response to a powerful local tax cut movement, and a popular narrative that championed the notion of public scarcity. This narrative takes as an article of faith that the return of resources to individuals is so superior a notion, that even the loss of public utilities such as streetlamps could be seen as a public good. Read more ... Less on their Plate: Canada’s poorest people facing a frightful food crisis It took us far too long to realize the connections between the actions of the U.S. Federal Reserve to the riots in Yemen and Tunisia, and between the immense political gift to Canada’s richest people and the food crisis facing our poorest residents. It goes something like this:
|