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Income Security Advocacy Centre

Income Security Advocacy Centre

ISAC works to address issues of income security and poverty in Ontario

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Media & Policy News: 28 March 2014

March 28, 2014

Top Stories

CCPA Ontario report shows impact of recession and post-recession fallout on women:

  • Star:http://www.thestar.com/business/economy/2014/03/26/ontario_women_at_both_ends_of_age_spectrum_hit_hard_by_recession.html
  • Global: http://globalnews.ca/news/1230035/young-women-single-mothers-hit-hardest-in-post-recession-job-market/
  • Here’s the report: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/node/12205 

Newfoundland and Labrador’s 2015 budget includes “full-day Kindergarten in 2016, the replacement of student loans with grants, an enhanced low-income seniors’ benefit, increased tax exemptions for low-income residents and families, and a five-per-cent jump in income support rates”:

  • Telegram: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-03-27/article-3666497/Full-day-kindergarten%2C-student-loans-highlight-budget/1
  • CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/families-students-seniors-get-boost-in-deficit-budget-1.2586913

Community Benefit Agreements: A new tool to reduce poverty and inequality:
http://maytree.com/spotlight/community-benefit-agreements-new-tool-reduce-poverty-inequality.html

Natural gas rate hike could hit low income Ontarians hard:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/natural-gas-rate-hike-may-pinch-low-income-earners-1.2579964

LIEN: It’s time for an energy rate affordability program for Ontario:
http://www.cela.ca/newsevents/media-release/mr032514

Rick Mercer’s Rant on income splitting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUt3Ag7rdgR6mtzOMEhd_v6g&v=3G-WBFF52-A&feature=player_embedded

Dobbin: Expanding the window of acceptable policy ideas or, How change happens:
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/03/24/Big-Political-Ideas/

Fiorito on inequality, and a Trish Hennessy speech:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/26/income_inequality_how_you_doin.html#

Important Stuff

Petition to support legislation to improve working conditions and wages for hundreds of thousands of Ontarians:
http://togetherontario.org/decent/

Working for Change has a new website!
http://workingforchange.ca/

Two reviews of the new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”:

  • Al Jazeera highlights this: When the rate of return on capital is greater than economic growth, inequality will occur, especially when tax policy promotes accumulation not redistribution: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/thomas-piketty-capitalinequalityeconomics.html
  • NYT highlights this: Growing inequality will not inevitably stabilize – it will take government policy change to make the difference:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/business/economy/a-relentless-rise-in-unequal-wealth.html?_r=1

Ontario

Both shelters and housing are essential parts of addressing violence against women:
http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/4428585-shelters-are-the-first-step-to-freedom/

Ontario government challenging right of injured migrant workers to access health care:
http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/03/25/ohip_for_injured_migrants_should_end_with_work_permit_court_told.html

  • Justicia press release: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1807558

March and rally at last Saturday’s Liberal convention demands action on poverty:

  • Spec: http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4426707-protesters-call-on-wynne-to-boost-social-assistance-funding-minimum-wage/
  • Globe video: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/video/video-protesters-rally-against-ontarios-cuts-to-social-assistance/article17626729/
  • Media Co-op: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/video/anti-poverty-march-disrupts-liberal-convention-tor/22267
  • And a Flickr photoset: https://www.flickr.com/photos/drawstring/sets/72157642763074474/

Ontario cracks down on unpaid magazine internships:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/27/unpaid-internship-crackdown-toronto-life-walrus_n_5044462.html

Around the Province

Real estate dispute threatens future of Toronto family shelter:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/25/real_estate_dispute_threatens_future_of_red_door_family_shelter.html

High rates of flesh-eating disease among people in northwestern Ontario who are homeless:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/flesh-eating-disease-in-homeless-signals-broader-problem-shelter-head-says-1.2585709

Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty rallies against austerity:

  • http://www.kisssudbury.com/2014/03/25/groups-want-reduction-in-poverty-rates/#comment-3184
  • http://www.thesudburystar.com/2014/03/23/anti-poverty-activists-challenge-wynne-austerity-plan 

Cancellation of Kitchener bus service will leave food hamper program inaccessible:
http://www.therecord.com/news-story/4436067-poverty-activists-concerned-by-kitchener-bus-route-cancellation/

Perspectives on poverty and health at a recent Toronto event:
http://thevarsity.ca/2014/02/27/a-myriad-of-perspectives-on-poverty-and-health/#workingforchange

Dr. Kwame McKenzie becomes Director of Toronto’s Wellesley Institute:http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2014/03/25/doctor_tends_to_torontos_urban_health_in_new_role.html

Across the Country

Study: Inuit have highest food insecurity of any indigenous people in Canada:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/inuit-go-hungry-more-than-any-other-indigenous-group-report-1.2588107

Edmonton mayor launches Task Force for the Elimination of Poverty:
http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/03/20/edmonton-mayor-don-iveson-launches-task-force-to-eliminate-poverty

Charlottetown photography exhibit highlights women in poverty from their own perspective:

  • CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/women-highlight-their-own-poverty-in-exhibit-1.2581330
  • Guardian: http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Living/2014-03-20/article-3656620/Images-show-truth-about-poverty-on-P.E.I./1 

Winnipeg man goes two months without disability top-up due to paperwork problem:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/a-crippling-case-of-red-tape-251361741.html

How snowclearing in Newfoundland and Labrador demonstrates the problem of precarious work:
http://theindependent.ca/2014/03/25/snowclearing-greed-and-precarious-labour/

BC Labour Relations Board finds Mexican officials guilty of blacklisting migrant workers:
http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-national.php?Id=657&yr=2014

National

Stanford: Putting paid to the skills shortage myth:
http://www.academicmatters.ca/2013/11/canadas-sluggish-labour-market-and-the-myth-of-the-skills-shortage/

Parliamentary Budget Office says there’s no skills crisis or labour shortage:

  • Globe: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/no-national-labour-shortage-as-conservatives-claim-budget-watchdog-says/article17657608/
  • CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/budget-watchdog-finds-little-evidence-of-labour-skills-shortages-1.2585468 

Press Progress says Joe Oliver got it wrong on jobs 3 times in 30 seconds:
http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/joe-oliver-gets-it-wrong-jobs-3-times-30-seconds

And Walkom explains why Harper’s unemployment solutions don’t work:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/03/26/why_stephen_harpers_unemployment_solutions_dont_work_walkom.html

Neve: Taking a stand against “the “bogus rhetoric of bogus refugees”:
http://www.slaw.ca/2014/03/21/the-bogus-rhetoric-about-bogus-refugees/

Finance documents show government omitted crucial info on CPP expansion:
http://www.canadianlabour.ca/national/news/federal-government-did-not-tell-whole-story-cpp-atip-documents-show-finance-department

IMF says corporate Canada tops the list of global cash hoarders:

  • HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/25/canadas-corporate-cash-hoard-imf_n_5030345.html
  • Press Progress: http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/corporate-canada-tops-global-list-cash-hoarders
  • Here’s the report: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2014/cr1428.pdf

International

Worker-owned cooperatives: An old solution for a new problem?:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/magazine/who-needs-a-boss.html?_r=2

Parents of children with disabilities occupy Poland’s Parliament:
http://libcom.org/news/parents-children-disabilities-occupy-parliament-21032014

And from the UK:

  • Jobmatch website a perverse joke: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/governments-universal-jobmatch-website-joke-3258026
  • Work Capability Assessment leads to woman’s suicide: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-26740651
  • Woman recovering from cancer treatment forced to return to work: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mother-who-mastectomy-chemotherapy-radiotherapy-3286049
  • Transplant patient dies after being judged “fit for work”:
  • http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/28/linda-wootton-dies-after-being-judged-fit-for-work_n_3346582.html
  • ATOS quits contract to provide Work Capability Assessments: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/27/atos-quite-work-capability-assessment-contract-early
  • Even the Salvation Army rejects participation in workfare placements: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3370
  • Conservative councilman says inability to secure a weekend restaurant reservation proves there’s no food poverty in his area:www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/26/food-banks-crawley-liam-marshall-ascough_n_5034541.html
  • Welfare cap “locks in austerity”: http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2014/03/welfare-cap-locks-in-austerity/
  • Labour Party split over welfare cap: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/03/labour-mps-set-rebel-against-party-over-welfare-cap
  • National Fuel Poverty Awareness Day: http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/East-Riding/Hedon/HU12/News/Local-News/270189-Council-Supports-National-Fuel-Poverty-Awareness-Day

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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.