september 17, 2001

Nonprofit Sector Knowledge Base Project
"Statistics Canada is developing a body of knowledge on the nonprofit sector in Canada through the Nonprofit Sector Knowledge Base Project. The results of research studies are reported periodically in a series of brief reports posted on Statistics Canada's website. The findings will be of interest to those researching the voluntary sector or working in nonprofit organizations." Includes:

Voluntary Organizations in Ontario in the 1990s (pdf)
Many voluntary organizations in Ontario are involved in a struggle for their survival that is changing the very nature of the voluntary sector. In the past decade, voluntary organizations across Canada experienced a lot of pressure resulting from the combined effects of budget cuts, changing public policies, and changing community demands. These pressures appear to be bringing about changes in a) the services agencies provide, b) their operating principles and c) how they organize themselves in order to carry out their mission.
posted by todd

september 16, 2001

Charities and Advocacy Project
IMPACS: "Do you feel an 'advocacy chill' coming on? Has your organization stayed silent in public debates because of fear of the loss of its charitable status - or that it wouldn't get that status? Do you think charities have a connection to the grassroots and an expertise that policy makers need? Or do you think that charities should keep their ideas for legislative change to themselves?"

Related: Groups in Public Life: Theories and Controversies
posted by todd

september 14, 2001

Child Poverty Profile 1998
Summary: "Child poverty in Canada is a subject that is much discussed and debated. The National Council of Welfare itself has reported extensively on the negative effect poverty has on children and their families. Good health and development during childhood are among the most important factors in making sure that people grow up healthy enough to learn, find work, raise families and participate fully in society for all their lives. Children in low-income families have higher risks of poor health and poor developmental outcomes than do children in middle-income and high-income families.

"There is no one single defining portrait of child poverty. Poor children live in two-parent families and in single-parent families. A great number of them have parents who work full-time. A great number of them live in families that depend on welfare. Some of their parents did not finish high school, some of their parents have a post-secondary diploma. Within this range of experiences, however, some groups stand out..."

Here's the full report.
posted by todd

september 11, 2001

Where will patients go?
Ottawa Citizen: "The Ontario government's community-care project was presented as a way of taking strain off the province's hospitals. Patients who didn't need round-the-clock care were moved out of hospital earlier, and the government set up community-care access centres to provide some of the services the patients needed to live independently. And then, last June, the province froze the budgets of the CCACs where they were in April, 2000...

"This is the worst kind of bureaucratic foolishness: It's both expensive and dangerous, in that it pushes people into care that's more expensive than they need, and it has them using resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. All in aid of a 'program review' that irrationally separates home care from the rest of the province's health system. The system has been re-oriented toward home care through wrenching reforms, including closing hospitals -- and now the whole thing is on hold while the ministry tries to decide whether it's a good idea or not."
posted by todd

september 7, 2001

Media diversity is suffering
Hill Times: "Whatever one thinks of Conrad Black’s conservative brand of politics, he has one important characteristic which distinguishes him from most other media moguls. He’s not afraid of opposing views. Indeed, Black, who recently sold his remaining half-interest in the National Post to the Asper empire, relishes dissent. How else to explain that, among others, Black’s Post from the outset has regularly published the decidedly left-of-centre and consistently hostile-to-the-right views of one Linda McQuaig. It’s called diversity, something you certainly won’t get in the Toronto Star and, I’m afraid, something which may soon fade to black, as it were, in the Post." Of course, not everyone will miss Conrad Black.
posted by marco

september 6, 2001

Workfare Watch: After the Boom
"Welfare reform in Ontario is widely, although not universally, considered to be a success. Polls suggest that there is broad support for the reforms of the provincial government. It was a key feature in the Progressive Conservative election platforms of 1995 and 1999, and monthly press releases extolling the latest caseload figures, which have been on an uninterrupted downward trend since 1995, are a regular feature of provincial government strategy to manage the issue. Each month the province has released a statement trumpeting the latest number of people to 'break the cycle of dependency.' In May the province announced that another 5,343 people had left assistance, bringing the total number of people who had left welfare to 584,255 since 1995.

"The perception of success is largely a result of the way in which welfare reform was presented as a problem of 'dependency.' Framing the issue in this way shaped not just perceptions of the issue and attitudes towards welfare, but also the criteria by which success or failure would be judged. That standard has become one of caseload declines. There are many possible goals for welfare reform; reducing poverty, increasing incomes and helping people to gain quality jobs, but by framing the issue as one of ending 'dependency' reduces these goals to only one: caseload reductions. This is not a very demanding standard in the first place, and serves to distract attention away from these other, more meaningful outcomes. The tailing off of the economic boom jeopardises even these questionable attainments, putting the question of what constitutes success in welfare reform squarely back on the public agenda."
posted by todd

september 5, 2001

JobQuality.ca
"The site will answer questions like; What do Canadians say matters most to them in a job? Which workers have the highest job satisfaction? How well do Canadians get along with their bosses? What kinds of firms provide the greatest opportunities to learn and develop new skills? How do employee benefits vary across industries and firms? Who's working the longest hours? Which employees are best able to balance work and life?

"The number of jobs in the economy and the level of wages and salaries receive plenty of attention from policy makers and academics. Much less attention is paid to what affects the quality of our working experience."
posted by todd

september 4, 2001

Being Black and White
"As it happened, the insight that was striking me so personally - that the color line is drawn in shifting sand - would soon strike the culture. In the past few years, the headlines have been full of such things as the 2000 census's mix-and-match option; genetic evidence that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (his dead wife's half-sister and slave) left a widening delta of descendants; and the ascending god Tiger Woods's refusal to reject his plural ethnicity. And since 1995, a number of mixed-race memoirs have hit our shelves, opening discussion of a new identity: biracial writers who have a black parent and a white one. These authors grapple with the sense that they don't quite belong anywhere, that they aren't fully claimed by either race. But their wide range of experiences reveals how deeply racial identity, like any identity, is affected not just by society but also by family, character, time, and place."
posted by todd

september 2, 2001

CBC's $2.5M Makeover
"A major part of the expense is the contract awarded to Razorfish, a New York company that headed the re-design and led the production of video promotions that CBC viewers will see when the new look is launched. Razorfish beat out eight Canadian companies for the contract...

"Razorfish project leaders insisted that the CBC logo be referred to internally as 'The Gem' and not the 'Exploding Pizza' or 'Exploding A--hole' as CBC staffers refer to it, depending on their mood. Ms. Soles confirmed that the logo is now unofficially called 'The Gem,' but said there was no specific directive."
posted by todd

september 1, 2001

The Great War set off local battle
"Today marks the 85th anniversary of Berlin becoming Kitchener -- an integral part of the city's history and culture, one of the darkest periods in its history."

Previously: Where is Kaiser Wilhelm's Head?
posted by todd

august 31, 2001

The Company that Built a Country
"Now it will be just a bunch of companies. Not so long ago, Canadian Pacific was a great enterprise - the business adventure that built a country, the company the government of Canada had to stop from becoming too powerful. A legendary company, celebrated in story and song, immortalized in art and advertising, an enterprise literally built into the Canadian landscape. Its history is the stuff of bestselling books and epic poems and many myths. Some of the myths are even true."
posted by todd

White Papers
"In the coming weeks the Community Development Council of Quinte will be responding to some key issues through our new series of 'White Papers.' These White Papers are tongue-in-cheek responses to these issues but hopefully will also be thought provoking at the same time. Keep checking this page and when one of the links is highlighted that means that White Paper is ready to read!"

Smart Growth (PDF)
"Don't you worry. Never fear. 'Smart Growth' will soon be here."

Ontario's Promise (PDF)
"Symbolized by a little red wagon, Ontario's Promise asks each of us to make a commitment to every child in this province. Ontario's Promise is more like a bandwagon. We'll climb on but for many of us we made our commitment many years ago and continue to keep our promise"
posted by todd

august 29, 2001

International Network for Cultural Diversity
"The Canadian-based network was formed after a UNESCO report found that countries flooded with imported culture suffer more racism. The group is requesting support from world leaders meeting at the World Conference against Racism and Xenophobia. Their aim is to construct a treaty that would remove culture from trade agreements and preserve regional cultures."

Related: Window to Culture via wood s lot

Related: News from WCAR via Newcomer News
posted by todd

august 28, 2001

Live Like A Tramp in London
Guardian: "Each will be given a sleeping bag and the choice of either a musical instrument or sketch pad and pencil with which they will have to try to earn money to survive. Only on their last night will the survivors get some of the comfort usually associated with a holiday, and will be taken to a good hotel and treated to a meal. Lodewyk Brondyk, of Kamstra, said: 'The idea is to give people a taste of what life is like on the streets of London. We hope it could be a life changing experience for them.' But the idea that 'rough sleeper holidays' can be fun has outraged London's leading homelessness charities."
posted by todd

august 27, 2001

Pith and Vinegar
"Today is my first day of being someone's manager, and truth be told I'm a little nervous.. I've been practicing the important authority-laden phrases in the mirror: 'We'll need you to work on that over the weekend.' 'What's going on with the [blank] situation?' 'If you quit, I will cry.'"
posted by todd

Tenant advocates denounce 3.9% hike
Toronto Star: "The increase facing Ontario tenants next year is the highest in nine years. Critics said the rent hike, up from 2.9 per cent this year, is far above the inflation landlords face and a blow that tenants just can't handle.

"A spokesperson for Housing Minister Chris Hodgson said the higher rent - which will affect tenants when they renew their leases next year - isn't a political decision but is based on a formula that the government can't change."
posted by todd

Top court to tackle social issues
Ottawa Citizen: "Is welfare a constitutional right? Should the state or the family be responsible for a disabled adult? Were border agents invading the privacy of a woman when they told employment insurance officials she was out of the country while collecting benefits? When the Supreme Court of Canada convenes this fall, the three cases are expected to be among the most controversial that will deal with some of the more pressing issues of the day."
posted by todd

august 24, 2001

Women's Health Resources
"The database contains records for health information resources pertaining to women's health published, for the most part, in Ontario over the past five years (1995-2000), in all formats (print, electronic and Internet) and with a focus on health promotion." From the Ontario Women's Health Council.
posted by todd

Who owes what in a racist world?
"What strikes me as peculiar is that reparations can be viewed as acceptable and morally unquestionable in one case, German reparations to Jews arising from the Nazi era, yet unacceptable in the case of the slave trade. There ought to be at least some common ground between these cases, yet they are treated as if there is none. I don't have an answer on this; I'm pointing at it in amazement.

"It's an odd topic in other ways. My experience with many Canadians is that they immediately make a dramatic leap to native land claims: Those Indians want all of B.C. Or Vancouver. Or Sarnia -- though these aren't even about reparations, they have to do with unsettled treaties and relations between nations. There's a subtext of guilt or its denial and a panicky fear of: Where will it all end? They may lay out some arguments but you sense that, no matter what, they aren't gonna move. There's a comparable edginess for many on the claiming sides, since their position locks them into ongoing victim status, which sits uncomfortably with many folks. So let me suggest an alternate solution. It may strike you as sheer blueskying."
posted by todd

august 23, 2001

hogdex - Toronto news central
"a Toronto news and info search engine. We visit the Toronto news sites regularly so our index is always up-to-date. General subject search engines (like the terrific Google) simply can't visit the Toronto news sites as often as us." via boing boing

Actually, Google has started indexing some weblogs daily. But not ours.
posted by todd