Contents: 1 Ontario's Diminished Fiscal Capacity 2 Options for Restoring Ontario's Fiscal Capacity 3 Ontario's Jobs Crisis and its Link to the Provincial Debt 4 Working Down our Debts 5 Education 6 Post-Secondary Education 7 Child Care 8 The Environment 9 Health Care 10 Social Policy 11 Housing 12 Local Government and Public Services in Ontario 13 Ontario 1997-98 Budget Highlights 14 The Alternative Federal Budget and its Implications for Ontario
Summing up the thinking of twenty social action groups and various independent economists, this new volume shows how federal programs in many areas can be improved without increasing the public debt.
This is a budget that reflects the values Canadians hold dear- whether it's fighting unemployment and poverty, protecting Medicare and the social safety net, or ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of the cost of government. This budget shows how unemployment can be cut in half and how poverty can be cut by one-third in the next few years. It shows how Ottawa can afford to put money back into education and health care, while reducing the debt burden faster than Paul Martin plans. It shows how selective, targeted tax increases for the wealthy can generate some needed additional resources without penalizing average Canadians.
If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? Following his bestselling political memoir, the former premier of Ontario stepped back to consider the subject of responsibility in and for society. Structuring his thoughts on Rabbi Hillel’s famous questions, he explores the roles of government, business, communities and individuals in the new economic and political reality of Canada. He confronts the most basic and urgent question of our time: in this age of globalism, in this period when the gulf between rich and poor is growing, what is our responsibility to ourselves and to others? Every successful society needs to recognize and reward individual success as well as demonstrate an organized capacity for social compassion. A successful politics will understand that pursuing both prosperity and the public good — finding the right answers to the three questions — is not easy. But the challenge must be met. From the Trade Paperback edition.
In this timely work, Jane Fowler Morse reviews the history of school finance litigation in the United States and then examines recent legal and political struggles to obtain equitable school funding in New York, Vermont, and Ontario. These three places have employed strikingly different strategies to address this issue, and Morse analyzes lessons learned at each that will benefit both public officials and citizens interested in seeking reform elsewhere. Drawing on writers from Aristotle to Cass Sunstein and Martin Luther King Jr., she also explores the concepts of social justice and equity, highlighting the connections between racism, poverty, and school funding. The result is a passionate plea for equitable funding of public education nationwide to instantiate the ideal of "liberty and justice for all."
What are the major issues confronting social policy-makers today? What theoretical perspectives shape our thinking about the causes of social problems and how we should respond? What can we do to influence decision makers about which policy choice to make? In this completely revised and updated edition of "Canadian Social Policy," a new generation of social policy analysts discusses these important questions. Readers who are interested in discovering the current policy debates, and who want to understand the policy-making process at various levels of government as well as how they can influence the process and assess whether policies are working, will find this book invaluable.
The first book to study women's poverty over the life course, this wide-ranging collection focuses on the economic condition of single mothers and single elderly women--while also considering partnered women and immigrants--in eight wealthy but diverse countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In a rich analysis of labor market and social welfare sectors, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and a team of outstanding international contributors conclude that both living-wage employment and government provision of adequate benefits and services are necessary if lone women are to achieve a socially acceptable living standard. Taken together, the chapters extend a feminist critique of welfare state theories and chart nations' disparate progress against poverty -- probing, for instance, how Sweden emerged a leader in the prevention of women's poverty while the United States continues to lag. By identifying the social and economic policies that enable women to live independently, Poor Women in Rich Countries provides nothing less than a blueprint for abolishing women's poverty.
