This past week, public policy proposals were piling up fast and furious as each political party vies for the attention of voters rightly concerned about stalled wages and rising living costs—pledges that ranged from first-time home buyer incentives, to caps on cell phone fees, to the relaunch of the children’s…
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Duelling platform planks appear to be a theme in this election. My last blog looked at CMHC mortgage insurance changes endorsed by both the NDP and the Conservatives. Today’s analysis looks at the Liberals’ and Conservatives’ proposed versions of non-taxation of EI parental benefits. The Conservatives want to offer a…
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This blog post is the third in our series of election primers. It looks at three key issues—child care, housing and employment insurance—and what’s at stake in Election 2019. View the story Federal election primer: Investing in public services edition By Katherine Scott Election 2019 is shaping up to be…
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While the Childcare Access and Relief from Expenses (CARE) tax credit from Budget 2019 is very similar in design to what was in the Brown platform (which means the main points from my analysis a few days ago have been reinforced), with the provincial budget now in hand I can…
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The Ontario Conservatives’ first budget is being delivered on Thursday. Normally this is the first opportunity for the public to compare the government’s plan with any promises the governing party made trying to get elected. In this case, since there was no Conservative campaign platform, and the Ford government has…
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On February 5, Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Lisa MacLeod, held a press conference with her Parliamentary Secretary, Amy Fee, to announce sweeping changes to the Ontario Autism Program. I sat glued to my screen at my office and then following the announcement, closed my door and cried….
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Last year, the BC government made a landmark investment to begin addressing the affordability crisis in child care. A new report released by CCPA this week shows just how urgently needed those measures were (and continue to be). The report, Developmental Milestones: Child care fees in Canada’s big cities 2018, shares…
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Premier Scott Moe tweeted this graphic on equalization yesterday. The tweet continues the Saskatchewan government’s long record of misrepresenting how equalization works in the hopes of ginning up anti-Quebec and anti-Ottawa sentiment among the Saskatchewan electorate. However, this time the misrepresentation goes one further, as it implies the graph is…
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Take a deep breath, Ontario: we have reached the conclusion of this bizarre and dramatic election period. We wade now into unchartered territory. Sure, there have been PC governments before. But there has never been a PC government quite like the one we are about to experience under Premier-designate Doug…
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Back in March, the Ontario Liberals put all of their chips on the table with their election-style provincial budget. They promised free child care, more support for dental care and drugs, and a reinvestment in health care—bankrolling it by deficit spending for the next six years. That left the opposition…
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