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Income Security Advocacy Centre

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Media & Policy News: 23 April 2013

April 23, 2013

Top Stories

The Ontario budget is coming May 2, and the deficit is $5 billion less than projected:
http://www.citynews.ca/2013/04/22/ontario-budget-to-be-tabled-may-2/

People with health conditions fear losing the Special Diet Allowance:
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

The budget should boost the Ontario Child Benefit to promised levels this year:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/22/ontario_budget_2013_should_boost_child_benefit_to_help_poor_kids.html

The budget should also move to protect precarious workers:

  • http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/04/19/how_to_curb_precarious_employment.html
  • http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/04/08/ontario_liberals_must_act_to_protect_most_vulnerable_workers_editorial.html

Peterborough may cut discretionary benefits, a result of last year’s budget decision to end CSUMB and cap health benefits for people on social assistance:
http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2013/04/19/city-could-consider-cuts-to-discretionary-benefits

Community Legal Clinics release their system-wide strategic plan:
http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/legalfeeds/1426/holistic-services-the-way-forward-for-ontario-legal-clinics.html

Reforming Social Assistance in Ontario

Three columns from the Star’s Joe Fiorito

  • A long march: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/15/long_march_for_welfare_reform_fiorito.html
  • What poverty actually costs: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/17/poverty_costs_us_billions_fiorito.html
  • Are the prospects brighter? Or dimmer?: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/19/dim_or_brighter_prospects_for_welfare_reform_fiorito.html

ODSP Action Coalition and OPSEU lobby MPPs:
http://www.nupge.ca/content/5758/lift-people-disabilities-out-poverty-says-opseu-members-odsp-lobby

Senior business leaders urge reforms to ensure economic security:
http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/media/2013/20130417.php

City of Hamilton’s Community Services Department has made a great video, “Unequal Access to Healthy Food”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Vh0JNPV5kN4

OCAP and CUPE rally at Finance Minister’s office:
http://www.northumberlandview.ca/index.php?module=news&type=user&func=display&sid=21606

Similar rally held in Sudbury:

  • http://www.northernlife.ca/news/localNews/2013/04/08-memorial-park-protest-sudbury.aspx
  • http://sudbury.mediacoop.ca/story/solidarity-antidote-austerity/17155

Around the Province

Kenora Daily News Op-Ed: Homelessness and Social Determinants of Health:
http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/2013/04/17/homelessness-and-social-determinants-of-health

How a Milton mom fell into poverty:
http://www.insidehalton.com/community/article/1606655–how-a-milton-mom-fell-into-poverty

Access to justice for the poor:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Right+know+Legal+limits+poorest/8270323/story.html

National

What happened at the federal Finance Committee’s hearings on inequality:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/1123687-parliamentary-discussion-of-income-inequality-opens-with-clash-of-opinions

Carol Goar, on how to fix the Temporary Foreign Worker program:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/04/22/how_to_fix_the_foreign_worker_program_goar.html

Alex Himelfarb, on celebrating public service:
http://afhimelfarb.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/celebrating-public-service/

And you thought the free trade debate was long over:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/04/19/justin_trudeau_stephen_harper_thomas_mulcair_buy_into_freetrade_theory_that_doesnt_work_walkom.html

International

From the UK, damning commentary on that nation’s changes to disability income support:
http://rabble.ie/2013/04/22/woes-and-wheelchairs-a-personal-assistants-account/

IMF says Canada headed for a growth slowdown and shouldn’t raise interest rates:
http://www.thestar.com/business/economy/2013/04/16/imf_tells_canada_to_keep_supporting_growth.html

You have probably seen that the IMF admitted they were wrong about austerity:
http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-admitted-their-economists-were-wrong-2013-1

And, a key argument for austerity has been dismantled:

  • http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/04/17/major-errors-undermine-key-argument-for-austeri/193653
  • http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-great-debt-delusion-how-math-keeps-proving-austerity-wrong/275037/

Austerity now has an image problem:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/who-is-defending-austerity-now/275200/

Turns out, the dismantling was done by an economics grad student who found an error in the economists’ original calculations:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/grad-student-who-shook-global-austerity-movement.html

Tax “competition”, it turns out, is always harmful:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/18/tax-competition-mythbuster

A majority in the US want better wealth distribution and a “robin hood tax”:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/18-9

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This site contains general legal information for people in Ontario, Canada. It is not intended to be used as legal advice for a specific legal problem. ISAC is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization. ISAC is funded by Legal Aid Ontario (LAO). The funding for this website is also provided by LAO. The views expressed in any of ISAC’s publications (including written, oral, or visual) are the views of the clinic and do not necessarily reflect those of LAO.