Yesterday, the Metcalf Foundation released an insightful report on the legislation governing migrant workers in Canada. The report’s starting point is that legal regulation of work can either create conditions of decent work and security or conditions of insecurity and exploitation. The report’s author, Fay Faraday, breaks the labour migration cycle into 6 steps from […]
Archives for 2012
Improving Health Policy: Complex Policy and Governance for Complex Issues
The World Health Organization’s European office has just published a very interesting book on Governance for Health in the 21st Century. It begins from a social determinants and broad view of health and well-being, and provides a very comprehensive review of the kinds of governing and decision-making frameworks and approaches that are necessary to enhance […]
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Good news: New report charts sustainable future for TCHC affordable homes
Putting People First – the final report of Councilor Ana Bailao’s affordable housing working group – puts the brakes on plans for a massive sell-off of Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s affordable homes and, instead, sets out a practical set of recommendations to preserve and enhance virtually all of the housing. Last year, after an unprecedented purge […]
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Acting on the Social Determinants of Health: the Potential of Intersectoral Collaboration
Addressing the social determinants of health that underlie pervasive and damaging health inequities is a complex and dynamic challenge — a classic ‘wicked’ policy problem. There is a clear consensus that effective action cannot be organized issue by issue, or silo by silo, but must be collaborative. This means on the ground through coordinating public […]
Urban Aboriginal youth and corporate Canada: A powerful exchange through Prince’s Seeing is Believing
The powerful and engaging work that Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training and Native Child and Family Services do with urban Aboriginal youth was in the spotlight on Sept. 13 for the second Prince’s Seeing is Believing community tour. PSiB was launched by HRH Prince Charles more than two decades ago as a practical means to engage senior business […]
Health Equity Impact Assessment as a Policy Tool
The Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) and the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy publish a Public Policy and Health Newsletter. As with previous issues, the current newsletter provides a great deal of information on health impact assessment, including the just completed international conference on HIA. It also links to a […]
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Wellesley Institute 100 Anniversary of Homewood Place
One hundred years ago today the Welleseley Hospital opened it’s first arm, a year after its founding by Dr. Herbert Bruce. The postcard below shows opening day of Wellesley Hospital Homewood Place on August 27, 1912. Over the years the Wellesley Hospital became known for its excellent and affordable patient care. The Wellesley Institute carries […]
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A Better Budget for A Better City: What Ford can learn from Nenshi
The whole city has cause to reflect after last year’s budget process. From the Core Service Review to the all-night-meetings and subsequent cuts and ill-thought out fees for sports fields, last year’s city budget process fell short of what’s needed for better city building. We’ve released a new report that looks to Calgary, New York, Chicago […]
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Remembering Abner William ‘Bill’ Buss: Let’s all demand an end to homelessness
Earlier today, I joined with others for the funeral service of Abner William ‘Bill’ Buss, the 71-year-old man who died alone in a dark crawl space of an abandoned building near Parliament and Shuter in June. While the official cause of death was ‘natural causes’, there was nothing natural about the final days of Bill Buss. […]
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Precarious work, health and income inequality
This morning, the Law Commission of Ontario released draft recommendations on how to reform the Employment Standards Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, in its interim report on Vulnerable Workers and Precarious Work. The report provides a valuable overview of precarious work in Ontario, including that 22 percent, or more than 1 in […]
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