The recent unilateral decision by the federal government to spend up to $16 billion on the purchase and maintenance of new fighter jets is both wasteful and dangerous. It’s wasteful because our military doesn’t need such extravagant and costly equipment. The arguments for such military aircraft became obsolete with the end of the Cold War over twenty years ago.
Human rights
According to Statistics Canada, crime rates have been trending down for over 20 years. This includes the violent crime rate. Yet the Harper government continues to insist that there is an epidemic of crime, and that Canadians should be very afraid of increasing violence — guns, gangs and drugs — the fear factor.
This study analyses the financial and human costs of the Harper government's tough on crime agenda and concludes it is wrong-headed, expensive, and counter-productive. In fact, it will likely lead to more crime and a bigger deficit.
OTTAWA - The Harper governmentís tough on crime agenda will likely increase the incidence of crime and the deficit, says a new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The report, by CCPA Research Associate Paula Mallea, analyses the financial and human costs of the tough on crime agenda and concludes it is wrong-headed, expensive, and counter-productive.
(Vancouver) It’s time for a complete overhaul of BC’s legal aid system, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and West Coast LEAF (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund).
“Our system is in crisis,” says Alison Brewin, Executive Director of West Coast LEAF and co-author of the study. “Slashing legal aid services only saves money in the very short term. When people lack legal representation, cases are less likely to be resolved outside of court, and can lead to lengthy trials that are extremely costly to the public.”
“The disparity in income between the rich and the poor is merely the survival of the fittest. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.”
--John D. Rockefeller, 1894.
Prior to the 2006 federal election campaign, where the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats touted their “tough on crime” credentials in the shadow of the “summer of the gun,” prison systems across Canada were already facing significant challenges.
TORONTO – Prominent Canadian women have a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: they refuse to be silenced. The women – feminists, activists, academics, economists, and former politicians – contributed to a new anthology by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
You may have missed the news about a recent study by the Mayo Clinic on optimism and pessimism. The study over a 40-year period concluded that optimists tend to live longer than pessimists: “Grouchers and grumblers don’t enjoy the longevity that is reached by people who are happy and hopeful about the future.”
During the G20 ministerial meetings in Toronto, the sensational images of burning police cruiser cars and broken shop windows dominated the newspaper headlines. This is what the world saw.
What I saw in Toronto was radically different.