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