REUTERS/ERIN SCOTT
Health, health care system, pharmacare
The idea of a Green New Deal—a radical and comprehensive transformation of the economy to cut greenhouse gas emissions while tackling inequality—has been gaining steam as an organizing principle for the environmental and social justice movements. Yet there are many questions that GND advocates have yet to think through or agree on. Like how can we produce enough electricity to rapidly replace all fossil fuels? Will new, green jobs be good, unionized jobs that are accessible in the places where jobs are needed most? Crucially, how will we pay for it all?
Since 2005, the State of the Inner City research project has collaborated with Winnipeg community-based organizations (CBOs) working in the inner city. The project researches issues that matter to CBOs and the communities they serve. It connects the personal struggles of the people who live in the inner city with the ‘big picture’-the structural and political realities that affect their lives. While socio-economic marginalization exists outside the boundaries of the inner city, the inner city is an area that has been historically divided by class and race. This demands dedicated attention.
The 2019 State of the Inner City report “Forest for the Trees: Reducing Drug and Mental Health Harms in the Inner City” finds that there is no clear strategy in how the recommendations from the VIRGO Report and the Illicit Drug Task Force Report are being implemented. Analysis by University of Winnipeg criminologist Dr. Katharina Maier finds the rhetoric of a meth ‘crisis’ intensifies a law, order, and security response. This is counter to evidence-based approaches, which find that dealing with the conditions of problematic substance use are what is needed.
Are the priorities of the Manitoba government in line with Manitobans’ more broadly? This is the question asked last week by a diverse group of community volunteers, representing teachers, healthcare professionals and those concerned about climate change, poverty and income inequality. They were comparing the vision presented in the recent Speech from the Throne with what they have been hearing in workplaces and communities while working towards the upcoming 2020 Alternative Provincial Budget (APB).
The "Beyond Neoliberalism" workshop in Ottawa on October 30, 2019 was co-organized by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Trade Justice Network and Institute for Policy Studies, with support from Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung-New York.
Wealth taxation is back on the progressive political agenda. It is both a refreshing new idea and a return to vogue of a policy established decade ago in Europe. Some remember it as part of François Mitterrand’s 110 propositions pour France, a joint electoral platform in 1981 with the Communist Party that carried him into the Élysée Palace. The solidarity tax on wealth survived multiple right-wing presidents, only to fall recently to President Macron.
We are living with vast discrepancies between rich and poor in Canada. That much is undeniable. According to the Broadbent Institute, 10% of Canadians held almost half (47.9%) of all wealth in 2012. Meanwhile, around one in seven people (about 14%) live in poverty, according to Canada Without Poverty. The gap between those with and without wealth is stark.
This report provides a critical examination of the public-private partnership (P3) model proposed for the Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) Hospital Redevelopment, and details what little is known of the process thus far. The author raises concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability in this P3 decision-making process, and identifies a number of concerns about the implications of a P3 hospital for Nova Scotians. The report finds that private financing is 125% more than comparable public borrowing.