from Our Times
Writing for Our Times, Karl Flecker wonders how, in the face of copious evidence of their systemic involvement in "supersizing" the temporary foreign worker program, the Tories can now claim ignorance that it was actually a wage-suppression tool. The government's record since coming to power in 2006, he writes, has consistently increased temporary work visas and lessened the already-limited oversight of the temporary foreign worker program.
from Friends of Medicare
Friends of Medicare is concerned that a recent full-page ad that looks like a news story in the Edmonton Journal is designed to mislead Albertans.
"The Copeman Healthcare Center's advertisement in the Edmonton Journal, misleadingly presented as a news article, is a clear indication that the proponents of private, for-profit clinics are actively attempting to normalize the idea of American-style health care in Canada," said Sandra Azocar, Executive Director of Friends of Medicare.
For years now, she said, promoters of for-profit health care have been doing their best to convince the general public that the only way to improve Canada's health care system is to open it to private, for-profit interests. The promotion of for-profit care includes the suggestion that private medical facilities may provide faster access to those who pay.
"In Alberta, private facilities, and even some public facilities, do offer enhanced services. If enhanced services are of higher quality and private facilities allow people who can pay to have quicker access, then access and quality of care received will be based on the patient's ability to pay. The Copeman clinic's very existence shows that we already have two-tiered care in Alberta," said Azocar. "The 'queue jumping' evidence that came out of the preferential access inquiry shows that such activities are already present in our system."
“For years now, promoters of for-profit clinics have been doing their best to convince the general public that the only way to improve Canada’s health care system is to open it to private, for-profit interests.”
"Canadians and Albertans know that if we lose our public health care system, most people would not be able to afford health care," she added. "Allowing for-profit clinics to operate threatens the equality of access to medical services. They distort the public system. They don't save money, they don't fix any problems that the public system itself can't fix and they introduce a whole world of new problems. You cannot turn doctors into medical entrepreneurs with a completely different set of incentives and expect the system to work the same way."
from the New Economics Foundation
Britain's New Economics Foundation, self-described as a "think-and-do" tank, co-sponsored a recent conference on transforming the UK's financial system. Smaller, local banks focused on retail businesses and cooperative banks such as Canada's credit unions are critical to regional economies, according to NEF's Tony Greenham. However, in Britain, smaller local banks have long since been swallowed up by a handful of giant, remote institutions.
from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations
Ontario's 17,000 professors and academic librarians are calling on Premier Wynne to invest in the province's universities. The 2013 budget continues a decline in per-student funding, said Constance Adamson, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.
About $121 million is being cut from university budgets in 2012-13 and 2013-14, according to OCUFA. If current enrolment trends continue, per-student funding from the government will decline by seven per cent over the next four years.
New rules freezing tuition increases to three per cent will also harm university revenue, states OCUFA. While the organization supports decreasing tuition fees, compensatory government investment is required to maintain high-quality programs.
"Overall, this means that universities in Ontario will be forced to grapple with steadily declining resources, and corresponding threats to educational quality and affordability," states a recent OCUFA report. "With all the social and economic benefits generated by our institutions, the government's current course is harmful to students, to families, and the province."
from National Newswatch
Frances Russell in National Newswatch posits that the cycle of ever-expanding deficits coupled with rising demands for tax cuts and diminishing social programs makes a mockery of the dream of equal opportunity held by most of the world's democracies. In Canada, Lester B. Pearson's nation-building dream of a "single Canadian social and economic citizenship" is fading.
from Inside Higher Ed
"Inside Higher Ed" features an article by Elizabeth Redden on the end of Germany's experiment with tuition fees. Contrary to current trends, the last two states currently charging fees, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, will likely abolish them in the coming months. Public opinion is apparently "dead-set against it."
from the New York Times
Now that austerity arguments are demonstrably without factual basis, will that matter to the wealthy, wonders the New York Times' Paul Krugman. What people want from an economic policy depends on how much money they have. Average-income earners want to see health and social programs increased. Wealthy people favour spending cuts.
from The Uniter
Ethan Cabel of Winnipeg's The Uniter notes that the rise in P3 projects promoted by current mayor Sam Katz has its critics. Mayoral candidate Judy Wasylycia-Leis says public assets are sacrificed to the "unaccountable" private sector, and they are much more costly.
from the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions
The outsourcing of chemotherapy drugs without oversight is just the latest in a string of health privatization blunders with serious consequences for patients, says Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.
from Leftwords
Doug Allen's Leftwords blog notes that there has been little media commentary about the award to SNC-Lavelin of the $2.1 billion Ottawa light rapid transit project days after its former CEO was charged with the alleged transfer of millions of dollars to hospital officials in relation to a Quebec P3 contract. Last week SNC-Lavelin took a ten-year suspension from bidding on World Bank projects following allegations of bribery in Bangladesh. How likely is it that Ontario is immune?
