CCPA Policy Note

Entries Tagged as 'Children & youth'

BC poverty rates highest in Canada, again

June 15th, 2011 · · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Statistics Canada released a report today on incomes across Canada in 2009. As First Call BC points out in their news release, key points for BC include: BC’s child poverty rate rose to 12 percent in 2009, the highest child poverty rate of any province for the eighth year in a row. The BC rate [...]

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Social Determinants of Health

June 7th, 2011 · · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Employment & labour, Health care, Housing & homelessness, Human rights, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes, Women

It is now clear that economic, and social variables – more than individual behaviour – are the most salient factors in determining people’s well-being. Working and living conditions, the distribution of wealth, and where we live are some of , “the primary factors that shape the health of Canadians” (CCPA Monitor, June 2010). Almost everything [...]

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Thousands more millionaires in Canada

May 10th, 2011 · · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare

In case you were worried, the Financial Post reports that ”new wealth” will continue to be generated in Canada and be one of the developed countries to “have some of the biggest concentrations of millionaire households by 2020.”    I’m feeling so relieved, aren’t you? A Deloitte LLP report predicts that 2.4 million households in Canada will [...]

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Missing the Vote: Democratic Reform in BC

December 16th, 2010 · · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Electoral reform

I’ve long thought that we should lower the voting age to 16, so thanks to Mike deJong for raising it in the BC Liberal leadership campaign. I speak from some experience, as I voted shortly after I turned 17 in the Ontario provincial election. I was a frosh in residence at Western and no one [...]

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UNICEF shames Canada for inequality among children

December 16th, 2010 · · 1 Comment · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare

In an earlier blog Shannon Daub reported on Mark Milke’s assertion that inequality was a lot of humbug.  UNICEF has published a report that shows that it is children who bear the burden of inequality and that children are not to blame for it.  When many of us think about UNICEF we think of an [...]

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The Economist Magazine calls out BC

December 1st, 2010 · · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Well, I never thought I’d see this rebuke of Canada and BC in The Economist Magazine of all places. But the current issue of the conservative magazine singles out BC for its high rate of child poverty. You can find it here. The piece highlights cuts to welfare, and notes, “One of the keenest slashers [...]

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Poverty reduction update

December 1st, 2010 · · Comments Off · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Lots of developments on the Poverty Reduction front over the last two weeks. Here are a few updates: First, last week brought news that Danny Williams is stepping down as premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. Personally, I’m sad to see him go. Rarely mentioned in the news reports last week about his record of accomplishments [...]

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A Paradigm Shift is Happening

November 21st, 2010 · · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Economy, First Nations & Aboriginal, Health care, Housing & homelessness, Human rights, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Women

A “paradigm shift” was the theme of Dr. Marti Glenn, one of the keynote speakers at the 2010 International Congress of The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology & Health, which took place from November 11-14 at Asilomar, California. Dr. Glenn, who is the Dean of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, began by saying that, [...]

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Why incentive pay won’t fix education or health care

October 14th, 2010 · · 4 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Health care, Privatization, P3s & public services

It turns out — surprise! — that it’s really hard to measure quality in complex social systems and that employing simplistic quantitative measures can backfire. That’s the take-home message from a recent talk by UC Berkley economist and public policy professor Jesse Rothstein who came to SFU to present his latest research on using standardized [...]

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What do we value more? Good taste or saving young lives?

October 9th, 2010 · · Comments Off · Children & youth, Media

Last May there was uproar in the media about an advertising campaign planned by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC).  The Insurance Corporation was targeting young drivers with a racy campaign to persuade them not to drink and drive.   The then Solicitor General Kash Heed put the kibosh on the campaign that had cost [...]

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