By Seth Klein and Adrienne Montani On February 11, British Columbians will enjoy a well-deserved new stat holiday. With the inaugural Family Day, Premier Christy Clark has made good on a promise made during her bid for the BC Liberal leadership. The winter stretch needed a new long weekend, and many will appreciate this new-found [...]
Entries Tagged as 'children'
Seeking a Real Families First Agenda this First BC Family Day
February 7th, 2013 · Seth Klein · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Taxes
Tags: child poverty·children·living wage·minimum wage·poverty·welfare
New voices in support of a BC poverty reduction plan
September 30th, 2010 · Seth Klein · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare
Two important new voices joined the call for a BC poverty reduction plan in the last couple days. First, on Tuesday, BC Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall released a special report entitled Investing in Prevention. The report received quite a lot of media attention. However, most of the coverage dealt with the common-space issues of [...]
What will it take to bring smarter family policy to BC?
September 27th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Children & youth, Transparency & accountability, Women
Did you know that the BC government has set a goal to reduce early childhood vulnerability to 15% by fiscal year 2015? You can hardly tell by their actions. BC did introduce full-day kindergarten in some communities this fall, but other than that the family policy front has been rather quiet lately. The latest childhood [...]
Tags: accountability·child poverty·childcare·children·families·family policy·poverty·role of government·Women
Your Brain on Capitalism
September 7th, 2010 · Peter Prontzos · 3 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Environment, resources & sustainability, Poverty, inequality & welfare
At least as far back as Sokrates, people have speculated on the relationship between psychology and politics. In the 20th century, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm and members of the Frankfurt School (such as Herbert Marcuse) pioneered discussion about how individual dispositions affect one’s social and political ideologies. On the other hand, social psychologists like Stanley [...]
The recent secretive, haphazard spending cuts should be repealed
September 23rd, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Education, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability, Women
Almost daily we wake up to news of yet another important program or initiative whose funding has been cut by the BC government. Literacy initiatives, high school sports, programs that protect women and children from violence, arts and culture: hardly an area of social service provision has been spared. These cuts have been devastating to [...]
Tags: accountability·budget·children·deficit·role of government·service cuts·Women
What should our government be spending money on?
September 16th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Economy, Education, Environment, resources & sustainability, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes
One question that is missing from the public debate on deficits and debt is whether we’re getting the best bang for the stimulus buck. Even if we accept that it’s appropriate for governments to borrow and engage in deficit-financing during a recession, as I have argued here, we need to have a discussion about the [...]
Tags: budget·child poverty·childcare·children·debt·deficit·Olympics·public investment·recession·role of government
On tough times and priorities
September 10th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Provincial budget & finance
The BC government cannot afford $130,000 for the budget of BC School Sports, a volunteer organization which organizes sporting events for students. This is likely to affect 100,000 high school athletes across the province whose meets and competitions will be canceled. “It’s not business as usual right now,” explained Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, quoted in [...]
Tags: budget·children·Education·Olympics·spending cuts·sports
Doing the math on all-day-K
September 8th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Education, Provincial budget & finance
Amid the corner-cutting exercise that was the September BC budget, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope: actual money was alloted for the expansion of kindergarten to full day. Could it be that the BC government has finally started to get it and is planning to heed its own report on childcare (as I’ve [...]
BC government should heed its own report on childcare
May 7th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Women
Do you remember the 2008 Throne Speech in which the provincial government launched a feasibility study on providing full day kindergarten for 5 year-olds and extending full day preschool options to younger children as well? Here’s a refresher: A new Early Childhood Learning Agency will be established. It will assess the feasibility and costs of [...]
Tags: childcare·children·early childhood education·Early Childhood Learning Agency·kindergarten·teachers·Women
Why young children’s education and care are not priorities in this election
May 7th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Education, Women
It seems clear that policy-makers in this province (and country, for that matter) are not prepared to invest in a quality early education and childcare system, despite the proven benefits for children. The reasons have got to be political, as the economic case for investing in early childhood education and care has already been made [...]
Tags: baby boomers·campaign·childcare·children·early childhood education·feminism·gender inequality·health promotion·intergenerational justice·Paul Kershaw·Paul Krugman·seniors·Women
