Income Security Advocacy Centre

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

Media & Policy News: 28 March 2014

Top Stories

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

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”:

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”:

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

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

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:

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:

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:

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:

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: