Looking for progressive responses to the newly signed Trans-Pacific trade deal? Here’s the latest from CCPA National:
Trans Pacific Commentary a Big Win for Corporate Interests
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/should-canada-be-completing-trade-deal-middle-election
Should Canada be completing a trade deal in the middle of an election
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/should-canada-be-completing-trade-deal-middle-election
CCPA-MB congratulates
Shauna MacKinnon in the launching of her new book Decolonizing Employment, Aboriginal inclusion in Canada’s labour market
October 7th, 7pm at McNally Robinson. All are invited.
“A cogent, well-documented critique of neoliberal labour market policy and how it impacts Indigenous peoples in Canada. This book points out the implications of ideologically motivated policy which ignores the impacts of colonization. MacKinnon challenges some of the accepted norms of neoliberal policy, with well-researched and compelling arguments for substantial policy reform.”
– Gayle Broad, Associate Professor, Department of Community Development and Social Work, Algoma University
Shauna MacKinnon is assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Inner City Studies at the University of Winnipeg, and a CCPA-MB Research Associate.
By Elizabeth Comack, Cara Fabre and Shanise Burgher
Crime rates in Canada have been steadily declining for more than a decade, yet prison populations have been increasing in recent years. Commentators have attributed this disconnection between dropping crime rates and rising incarceration numbers to the Harper government’s tough on crime strategy. Since 2006 the Harper Conservatives have implemented legislative and policy changes designed to “tackle crime” and “make communities safer.”
By Shaun Loney
By some estimates, health care expenditures will account for about 80 percent of provincial program spending by 2030. This means fewer dollars for other priorities. With a problem this big, it’s important to get the diagnosis right.
Many on the right would have us believe that it’s our public health care system causing expenditures to increase, but that’s nothing more than a corporate fantasy. It’s been well documented that public delivery is far more efficient than the private alternative.
by Susan Prentice
Thirteen federal elections ago, in 1970, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women recommended a national childcare program. Fast-forward to 2015, and Canadian parents are more desperate than ever for affordable, quality childcare.
Up to 85 percent of all households with children have a mother in the paid labour force, making childcare an issue for nearly all young families. Canada, with its nearly 5 million children under the age of 12 years, has just under 1 million licensed regulated childcare spaces; spaces which are very unequally spread across the provinces, with varying quality and regulatory standards, at hugely unequal costs ranging from just $7/day to $75/ day. Where childcare spaces don’t exist or aren’t accessible, families are forced to resort to unregulated options – from family care (often by grandparents) or unlicensed and often expensive ‘informal’ care.
By Pete Hudson
The debate around the private financing of Canada’s health care system has recently been revived as one of a series of video shorts on human rights issues in Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum of Human Rights. It discusses a Supreme Court hearing in which Quebec’s prohibition on private insurance to cover procedures already covered by the public plan was challenged (Chaoulli versus Quebec 2005). Unfortunately, the video skews the debate in favour of private financing. For example, it poses this question for the viewing public: “Does a law that can cause patients to wait a long time for medical care violate their physical and mental safety?” The design of the question could hardly evoke a vote other than the 87 percent yes and 13 percent no (at the time of viewing). Even worse than the skewed wording is the lack of context, especially the failure to note the likelihood that those who cannot afford to use a private system will be harmed.
By Tim Sale
Every developed country except Canada knows that safe, affordable housing is a critical key to social, physical and emotional well-being. The list of poor outcomes associated with poor and unaffordable housing is long, and gets longer with every study. Higher rates of poor health, especially connected to respiratory illnesses and stress-related illnesses, poor school attainment, higher rates of family violence all are directly related to poor housing. Unaffordable housing forces individuals and families to choose between food and shelter, not filling medical prescriptions, not being able to participate in normal community activities such as children’s sports.
By Lynne Fernandez
Are you willing to do physically demanding work for $12.50 -$13.50/hour, for a 1 month contract?
One hundred and four inner-city young men and women are. In fact, these men and women lined up before 8:00 am in front of the North End Community Renewal Corporation to apply. As per the instructions in the job advertisement put out by Manitoba Green Retrofit (MGR), they had their steel-toed boots on and their resumes in hand.
A call for a Canada based on caring for the Earth and one another, The Leap Manifesto was released today.
Read How Can We Afford the Leap? by CCPA National Executive Director Bruce Campbell, CCPA BC Senior Economist Marc Lee and CCPA BC Director Seth Klein.
Featuring CCPA MB Director Molly McCracken and Neil McArthur, Department of Philosophy, University of Manitoba. Hosted by the University of Manitoba Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics.
Tuesday September 22nd. Doors 6 pm; Panel 7 – 8 pm
Fools and Horses Coffee Co. 379 Broadway
Free event, everyone welcome
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