Showing posts tagged canada

Poverty In Canada: Still a Huge Problem

Poverty rates in Canada, especially among children and the working-age population, are among the worst of 17 leading developed countries, according to the Conference Board’s annual ranking on Society indicators. With more than 12 per cent of the working-age population living in poverty, Canada’s D grade places it 15th out of 17 countries – ahead of only Japan and the United States. More than one in seven children lives in poverty here – that’s a C grade and 13th place.

Canada: We’re Better than You

PITTSBURGH — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, appearing to forget that his countrymen are generally known for their modesty, declared on Friday that his nation was the envy of the world.

Harper, usually a fairly wooden performer, seized on a routine question at a news conference and used it to deliver an impassioned defense of his 33-million strong nation and how well it has coped with the global economic crisis.

“Canada remains in a very special place in the world… . We are the one major developed country that no one thinks has any responsibility for this crisis,” he said to laughter.

“In fact, on the contrary, they look at our policies as a solution to the crisis. We’re the one country in the room everybody would like to be,” he said at the end of the summit of the Group of 20 advanced and developing nations in Pittsburgh.

Canada, which was running a budget surplus before the recession and avoided major banking problems, has been less affected by the crisis than many of its partners.

Harper said the other G20 nations “would like to be an advanced developed economy with all the benefits that conveys to its citizens and at the same time not have been the source, or have any of the domestic problems, that created this crisis”.

By this stage of his comments, the initial premise of the question had long since vanished and Harper — who leads the right-leaning Conservative Party — was focusing on several other factors that in his mind make Canada so irresistible.

“We’re so self-effacing as Canadians that we sometimes forget the assets we do have that other people see,” he said, speaking with a rare passion.

“We are one of the most stable regimes in history… . We are unique in that regard,” he added, noting Canada had enjoyed more than 150 years of untroubled Parliamentary democracy.

Just in case that was not enough to persuade doubters, Harper threw in some more facts about the geographically second-largest nation in the world.

“We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them,” he said.

And his final verdict?

“Canada is big enough to make a difference but not big enough to threaten anybody. And that is a huge asset if it’s properly used.”

The Calgary Herald

Oh yeah, no colonialism here. We’re just a former British and French colony that comitted genocide against the First Nations community. That was not colonialism at all.

fuckyeahlgbt: Not long after Alberta’s decision to eliminate all forms of gender reassignment surgery from its public health care, Manitoba has followed suit, calling it an “unnecessary treatment” and citing savings for the economy. The surgery would affect only an estimated 20 Manitobans per year. The Manitoba Health Department had previously suggested to the government that the province completely fund all forms of gender reassignment surgeries on the grounds that it dramatically improves the lives of people who suffer from a recognized disorder. A document prepared by the Health Department described the necessity clearly, but was dismissed by Gary Doer’s NDP government: Manitoba has no standards of care for Gender Identify Disorder in spite of the fact that internationally accepted standards exist. Coverage is denied on the basis that treatments are cosmetic, experimental or not medically necessary, contrary to all available evidence. Ontario had previously tried to delist gender reassignment surgery from its public health care, but was forced to re-introduce it by the Human Rights Commission ten years ago.

fuckyeahlgbt:

Not long after Alberta’s decision to eliminate all forms of gender reassignment surgery from its public health care, Manitoba has followed suit, calling it an “unnecessary treatment” and citing savings for the economy. The surgery would affect only an estimated 20 Manitobans per year.

The Manitoba Health Department had previously suggested to the government that the province completely fund all forms of gender reassignment surgeries on the grounds that it dramatically improves the lives of people who suffer from a recognized disorder. A document prepared by the Health Department described the necessity clearly, but was dismissed by Gary Doer’s NDP government:

Manitoba has no standards of care for Gender Identify Disorder in spite of the fact that internationally accepted standards exist. Coverage is denied on the basis that treatments are cosmetic, experimental or not medically necessary, contrary to all available evidence.

Ontario had previously tried to delist gender reassignment surgery from its public health care, but was forced to re-introduce it by the Human Rights Commission ten years ago.

(Reblogged from fuckyeahlgbt)
Cree, Metis and Dene activists tell Sen. John Kerry the truth about the tar sands.

Cree, Metis and Dene activists tell Sen. John Kerry the truth about the tar sands.

“

On the key question, 67 per cent of those [Canadians] asked said the environment should be just as much as priority for governments as tackling economic problems, with only 26 per cent saying it was a secondary concern.

The result was generally shared among Canadians, regardless of gender, annual salary, political affiliation or where they live. However, men, Conservative supporters and those in the West were most likely to say the economy is the top priority.

The Canadian Press

CANADA: We have better health care, and we’re not socialists

CANADIANS HEAD TO THE UNITED STATES FOR URGENT CARE

Flickr user no22a

The lie: Canada’s government-run health care is so bad that needy patients need to pay for care in the United States.

The liars: The advocacy group Patients United Now is running a television ad featuring Ontario resident Shona Holmes, who claims, “I survived a brain tumor, but if I had relied on my government health care, I’d be dead.” She says she traveled to the United States for lifesaving treatment.

In June, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said, “For cardiac bypass surgery, patients in Ontario are told they may have to wait six months for a surgery that Americans can often get right away.”

The debunking: Holmes did indeed pay $100,000 for care she received from Minnesota’s famed Mayo Clinic, considered one of the best medical centers in the world.

But Holmes’ treatment was not a lifesaving anti-cancer measure. The Mayo Clinic’s own Web site explains that she had a cyst — not a brain tumor — which was not necessarily life-threatening. (It also explains that Mayo is a nonprofit cooperative and strongly supports health-care reform.)

In general, Canadians are not flocking south for health care, and for good reason. According to a report from the Fraser Institute, a prominent Canadian think tank, both the Canadian and U.S. governments spend about 7 percent of their GDPs on health-care costs. (The United States, including private expenditure, spends about 16 percent of GDP on health care.) But all Canadians are covered for all medical care, plus some prescription drug costs. In the United States, 47 million are uninsured, and hundreds of thousands declare bankruptcy every year due to medical bills.

There are wait times in Canada, but nobody waits for emergency surgery; McConnell’s claim about bypass patients is untrue. In 2007, a non-emergency patient in Ontario waited about 61 days for elective bypass surgery, according to Canada’s health service. Such collected data is not made public in the United States.

From Foreign Policy

Funding Must Not Lead to Complacency on Poverty

The Daily NewsAugust 14, 2009

Despite the planned construction of 30 to 40 units of low barrier supportive housing on Wesley Street, as well as the recent opening of the 20 units of subsidized housing on Bowen Road, we cannot become complacent when it comes to the issues of homelessness and poverty in Nanaimo.

The province’s commitment in 2008 to building 160 units of housing in Nanaimo has resulted, so far, in actual funding for the 30 to 40 units mentioned above as well as another 10 units geared to First Nations seniors. This leaves a huge gap in the total number committed to.

The economic downturn has seen huge increases in people applying for income assistance and EI, the numbers of people accessing emergency food provision services have also increased.

With the province expecting huge deficits, cutting back funding wherever they can, there is no guarantee they will follow though with their commitment. Nanaimo has done its part in identifying locations throughout the community for the proposed 160 units and now it is up to the government to honour its commitment by providing the funding to build them.

Will this solve the problem of homelessness in Nanaimo? No.

Any housing built will be at a minimum of two to three years down the road. What can we do? As citizens of Nanaimo, and British Columbia, we must urge the Provincial and Federal governments not just to fund housing but to fund rent subsidies that can be used to immediately get people off the street. Only through a combination of efforts, and with the political will of all government levels, will we as a society be able to end homelessness.

Gordon Fuller

Nanaimo

via canada daily news