Toronto Community Housing officials, chastened after a harsh pair of reports released today from the city’s auditor, have started to take significant steps to improve financial management at the half-a-billion-dollar-a-year municipal landlord. While today’s report focuses on financial management of the city agency that manages a $6 billion real estate portfolio, there is little attention […]
Archives for February 2011
Driving health equity into action: Bob Gardner at Ryerson Conference
Policy makers, community partners, scholars, and students explored the challenges and issues surrounding a more equitable Canada last Saturday. The Wellesley Institute’s Bob Gardner gave a keynote speech arguing that health equity can be realized, and outlined a roadmap with the strategies, tools, policy changes and community mobilization needed to make it happen.
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Wellesley Institute staffers at CivicAction Summit: Analyzing critical issues, networking for action
Wellesley Institute staffers Rick Blickstead, Sheila Block and Michael Shapcott joined hundreds of other leaders from across the Greater Toronto Region for the CivicAction 2011 Greater Toronto Summit on Thursday. They’ll be back again for day two on Friday. Thursday was a day of high-level analysis, on-the-ground focus and – perhaps most importantly – an incredible […]
Three Wellesley Institute reps join CivicAction Summit to help build healthy, equitable GTA
The Wellesley Institute’s Rick Blickstead, Sheila Block and Michael Shapcott will join community and business leaders and politicians from across the Greater Toronto Area for the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance Summit on Thursday and Friday. The Wellesley Institute is committed to working towards a healthy and equitable GTA, and we have a special interest and […]
Celebrating 100 years since the founding of the Wellesley Hospital
In 1911, when Dr Herbert Bruce founded the Wellesley Hospital, Toronto was a city teeming with immigrants. Many of the new arrivals lived in substandard housing, lived on low incomes and suffered poor health. Fast forward to Toronto of 2011, a city that celebrates its cultural diversity, yet many recent immigrants still suffer higher rates […]
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What Is Health Equity?
Health equity is deep in the DNA of the Wellesley Institute. Many health statistics report averages over a large population – the entire City of Toronto or even the whole country of Canada. But averages can obscure the reality that certain groups (such as poor people, or recent immigrants, or Aboriginal people) bear the heaviest […]
C-304: National housing plan bill continues to hover at Commons committee
Draft legislation to create a much-needed national housing plan for Canada is hovering on the agenda of a Commons committee, waiting for final approval. Bill C-304 – which would require the federal government to consult widely then craft a comprehensive national housing plan within six months to bring Canada into compliance with our international housing rights […]
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Canada’s vital non-profit sector: Too important to be ignored!
Canada’s non-profit sector is big (more than 160,000 organizations) and non-profits make a major contribution to Canada’s economy, they employ more than a million people and non-profits help to create healthy communities. The Wellesley Institute’s Michael Shapcott delivered a presentation to the leadership conference of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada today that examined the challenges […]
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Welcome to Ontario – Don’t Get Sick
Eliminating health disparities is a complex challenge. But not all of it: some solutions are quick and immediate. Ontario denies access to OHIP for new immigrants for three months. This is discriminatory and dangerous to a vulnerable population – and easily fixable. I am supporting the Right to Health Care Coalition’s demand to remove the […]
Policy Solutions for "Wicked" and Complex Social Problems
Social policy can’t just be about addressing the easy issues – there are very few – but has to tackle really deep-seated and complex problems such as poverty, health disparities or homelessness. I just published an article on promising community-driven directions for addressing such fundamental inequalities and the policy frameworks needed to address such “wicked” […]
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