It is a huge honour to have been elected in the most recent federal election. I look forward to serving the people of Davenport and advocating on behalf of the great city of Toronto in the 41st Parlaiment of Canada.
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AC
By Andrew Cash
Well, we knew there had to be a hitch when Stephen Harper got up at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to sing a Beatles song. Setting the bar sufficiently low – it was a song Ringo sang, after all – is a Harper specialty.
But as the country woke up to the image of our wooden PM at the piano, many Canadian recording artists were twigging to yet another arts cut – one they say will hobble Canada’s specialized music community.
And like Harper’s arts misstep in the last election, this one – the chopping of the Canada Music Fund’s Canadian Musical Diversity component – has once again engaged and enraged a grassroots arts revolt. Read the rest of this entry »
OK, this bit of news is about time. The Conservative government in Ottawa has just announced measures to extend Employment Insurance benefits to the growing ranks of the self employed. Of course the devil, as usual with this crew, is in the details but this is a big step in the right direction–that direction being out of the past and into the future.
By Andrew Cash
A flash of deja vu hits me as i sit in the beautiful Victoria College Chapel at U of T on October 20 last week listening to the Council of Canadians’ Maude Barlow talk about free trade.
My first awareness of this human rights champion was during the great debate in the 80s over Canada’s free trade deal with the U.S. I can’t help feeling a little nostalgic for that simple time when the story was a bit clearer: you were either for or against closer ties with our huge neighbour to the south.
But Barlow and fellow panelist Sid Ryan tell the almost 200 people in attendance that while 20 years ago there were very few bilateral trade deals, there are now 2,600 around the world. Read the rest of this entry »
Tories favouring Tory ridings with stimulus money! Should we be shocked? We should but alas we’re not. We should at least be able to trust that our government is disbursing our money in an even handed way across the country and directed where it’s needed most. Shouldn’t we…at the very least?
Reminds me of the black cats/ white cats Tommy Douglas riff.
The legacy of Reaganomics: historic deficits and mounting debt in the U.S.
Our Mulroney: the last year of the Mulroney reign Canada posted, a record deficit for its day of $42 billion
George W. Bush–stratospheric debt and deficits
Harper–debt and deficits as far as the eye can see.
But that doesn’t seem to worry the Reform/Conservatives who never see a tax dollar they don’t think can be used for partisan purposes. To wit, this piece which surfaced in the dailies at the top of the week. Seems those tight fisted fiscal fighters don’t bat an eye when they can drop 100k on a photo op though they could have announced their fiscal update for free in the House of Commons.
For a lot of folks that is a very good question. After this summer’s garbage strike in Toronto I heard many people grousing about unions. It’s understandable given that so few people in Toronto get any sick leave at all let alone 18 days…oh ya, and bankable ones at that. If you’re not in a union chances are you’re not so sure these days how a victory for unionized workers is a victory for all Canadians.
That’s why I love this little spoof–you laugh and you learn. We need more like this.
The tireless folks at The Stop have come up with a fairly chilling little on line tool called Do The Math that compares our ideas of what it costs to live with health and dignity in Toronto with what a person actually makes on minimum wage or receives on Ontario Works. It takes a few minutes to fill out the survey that asks you to estimate the various costs from shampoo to cable, food, rent etc that are incurred in an average month. I filled out the survey skimping on a number of things. For example I didn’t include any car costs and listed entertainment and recreation at $50 bucks a month which includes cable. My total was $1980 a month. If you want to get really basic and cut out the entertainment and recreation you’ve got it down to $1780. But, according to the site a person working 35 hours a week at minimum wage makes $1429. And that is the best case scenario for many folks. If you are a single person on Ontario Works you’re getting $572. If you are on Ontario Disability Benefits you are getting an income of $1429.
I urge everyone to go to the site and do the math. It is quite sobering.
T.O.’s got one of the highest urban jobless rates in the country — but guess what? We’re copping fewer EI benefits.
By Andrew Cash
I started the day Monday (September 21) sitting at the back of a banquet hall at the downtown Hilton watching 1,000 T-dot business folks give a lukewarm welcome to what had been billed as a major speech by Michael Ignatieff outlining his economic vision.
Maybe they were just eager to dig into their lunch.
By the end of the day, I was at the back of another room, this one a town hall meeting organized by the Good Jobs for All Coalition at Ryerson, listening along with about 75 others to some hair-raising stories of big-city unemployment.
The two events seem to encapsulate the disconnect I’ve been feeling over Ottawa’s hot potato: Employment Insurance. At the beginning of the summer, the Liberals stepped up to the plate demanding EI changes – or else.
I’ve lost friends as “collateral damage” in a war that badly needs peace
By Andrew Cash
I didn’t know Darcy Allan Sheppard, but our household has mourned the death of two close friends in the last few years who were killed riding their bikes – one a gifted photographer, the other a budding musician, both unwitting “collateral damage” in a war that badly needs some peace.
But this war isn’t really just about competing modes of transportation. It’s a contest between top-down and bottom-up power, one that, as in the altercation between Sheppard and former provincial attorney general Michael Bryant, sometimes ends in tragedy.
The car is quintessentially top-down: it’s about status, speed, steel, ego, privacy, convenience, the individual and entitlement to space and resources. Not to mention it’s a brilliant example of human ingenuity.
Grassroots power has no better symbol than the humble two-wheeler, which is simple, accessible, communal, public, physical and a light touch on dwindling resources.
