A Canadian Priorities Agenda

A Canadian Priorities Agenda
Author: France St-Hilaire
Publisher: IRPP
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2007
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780886452032

Rising income inequality has been at the forefront of public debate in Canada in recent years, yet there is still much to learn about the economic forces driving the distribution of earnings and income in this country and how they might evolve in the future. With research showing that the tax-and-transfer system is losing the ability to counteract income disparity, the need for policy-makers to understand the factors at play is all the more urgent. Income Inequality provides a comprehensive review of Canadian inequality trends, including changing earnings and income dynamics among the middle class and top earners, wage and job polarization across provinces, and persistent poverty among vulnerable groups. The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), in collaboration with the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network (CLSRN), presents new evidence by some of the country’s leading experts on the impact of skills and education, unionization and labour relations laws, as well as the complex interplay of redistributive policies and politics over time. Amid growing anxieties about the economic prospects of the middle class, Income Inequality will serve to inform the public discourse on inequality, an issue that ultimately concerns all Canadians.

Working Without Commitments

Working Without Commitments
Author: Wayne Lewchuk
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2011-01-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0773586261

Working Without Commitments offers a new understanding of the social and health impacts of this change in the modern workplace, where outsourcing, limited term contracts, and the elimination of pensions and health benefits have become the new standard. Using information from interviews and surveys with workers in less permanent employment, the authors show how precarious employment affects the health of workers, labour productivity, and the sustainability of the traditional family model. A timely and relevant work for uncertain economic times, Working Without Commitments provides helpful information for understanding the present workplace and securing better futures for today's workforce.

Still Renovating

Still Renovating
Author: Greg Suttor
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2016-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0773548580

Social housing - public, non-profit, or co-operative - was once a part of Canada's urban success story. After years of neglect and many calls for affordable homes and solutions to homelessness, housing is once again an important issue. In Still Renovating, Greg Suttor tells the story of the rise and fall of Canadian social housing policy. Focusing on the main turning points through the past seven decades, and the forces that shaped policy, this volume makes new use of archival sources and interviews, pays particular attention to institutional momentum, and describes key housing programs. The analysis looks at political change, social policy trends, housing market conditions, and game-changing decisions that altered the approaches of Canadian governments, their provincial partners, and the local agencies they supported. Reinterpreting accounts written in the social housing heyday, Suttor argues that the 1970s shift from low-income public housing to community-based non-profits and co-ops was not the most significant change, highlighting instead the tenfold expansion of activity in the 1960s and the collapse of social housing as a policy priority in the 1990s. As housing and neighbourhood issues continue to flare up in municipal, provincial, and national politics, Still Renovating is a valuable resource on Canada’s distinctive legacy in affordable housing.

The Politics of Public Money

The Politics of Public Money
Author: David A. Good
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442615524

David A. Good's The Politics of Public Money examines the extent to which the Canadian federal budgetary process is shifting from one based on a bilateral relationship between departmental spenders and central guardians to one based on a more complex, multilateral relationship involving a variety of players.

Exalted Subjects

Exalted Subjects
Author: Sunera Thobani
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0802094546

An absorbing study, "Exalted Subjects" makes a contribution to the transformation of the racialized and gendered underpinnings of both nation and subject-formation.

Voluntary Sector Organizations and the State

Voluntary Sector Organizations and the State
Author: Rachel Laforest
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2011-09-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0774821477

In the early 1990s, voluntary organizations garnered little attention in Canadian policy circles, even though the federal government was simultaneously offloading its responsibility for essential services to the sector and cutting back their funding. Two decades later, the voluntary sector is a key public policy player in federal, provincial, and municipal politics. Rachel Laforest shows why this turnaround represents a significant shift in the way citizens and policy makers view the place of voluntary organizations in public policy. Members of voluntary organizations have struggled for a stronger voice in policy making and redefined their relationship to the federal government through key collaborations such as the Voluntary Sector Initiative. This deft account of how a loose coalition of voluntary organizations was transformed into a distinct sector offers a new conceptual framework for explaining dynamic state-voluntary sector relations at all levels of government.

The Guardian

The Guardian
Author: Patrice Dutil
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2011-06-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442694270

Finance departments have often been portrayed as guardians of the public purse. In The Guardian, a multidisciplinary group of contributors examines the Ministry of Finance of Ontario since the Second World War. During the last sixty years the Ministry was transformed from a relatively small 'Treasury' to a sophisticated policy machine. What started as a modest bookkeeping operation evolved into a key bureaucratic and policy agency as the government of Ontario assumed a leadership position in developing the province. These essays reveal Ontario's 'finance' as a dynamic policy issue shaped by the personalities of premiers and ministers, the energies of public servants at all levels, and a critical dialogue between political and administrative worlds. Drawing on different methodologies, this collection profiles a ministry as policy entrepreneur, spender, revenue generator, capacity builder, budget director, program manager, and intergovernmental agent. The Guardian fills a significant gap in public administration literature and in so doing describes how Ontario's Ministry of Finance defined its role as 'guardian.'