What is “affordability” to Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force?
At minimum a standard definition of affordability ought to be developed to determine how to best rectify Ontario’s housing crisis.
Analysis
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Why the Cambie case should concern us all
The Cambie Case is an important policy decision with massive impact on our cherished public healthcare systems that many Canadians are not familiar with. Adjudicated in British Columbia, this four-year-long trial began in 2016 and ended in 2020. Fortunately, the Provincial Court of BC recently made the decision to rule against privatizing health care financing.
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The price of labour and the price of everything else
Without redistributive policies, monetary policy alone can be detrimental to employment and wages. In addition to tackling profits through windfall and wealth taxes to fight price inflation everywhere else, we need to increase the price of labour. Governments must raise minimum wages to keep up with inflation, invest in decommodified housing, empower unions to defend…
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No mental health care without pharmacare
When thinking about mental health care, one would expect medication coverage to be included. While mental health and pharmacare are parts of universal health care for many countries, Canada lags behind as the exception.
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Why Ontario municipalities also want a good child care deal
For far too long, Ontario’s municipalities have been subject to a roller-coaster of provincially-imposed policy and funding changes with unrealistic timelines. Our local governments – and the public they serve – deserve better this time.
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Ending structural racism and the role of social and economic rights
Inequity is a scourge on society, independent of absolute living conditions. It is the cause and consequence of differences in power and resources throughout society, not only at the lowest socioeconomic rungs.
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A wealth tax is a progressive carbon tax
While the federal government is talking about the need for urgent and dramatic action, their spending and revenue plans have failed to match the rhetoric. Massive spending will require massive revenues far beyond carbon taxes.
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The historical imperative to get recovery right
The clear lesson from the past is that, once the sort of inequality that beset the Roman Empire – or that we are experiencing in Canada today – sets in, more often than not it has proven disastrous and in many cases spelled doom for entire societies.
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Canada has a health care investment problem
While Canadians are rightly proud of the principles our health care system is based on, there should be little doubt that those principles do not apply broadly enough or lack adequate resourcing.
