Monday, November 14, 2022

Your Forward-Thinking Government and You

Unflappable and well-prepared ....

HA!:

Nine out of ten patients in the province waited up to 45 hours for a hospital bed in September, the data shows. The increase was about one more hour than the month before and came despite a 5.1 per cent drop in the volume of patients compared to one year earlier.


How many medical professionals were fired during that time?

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The federal government is throwing away more COVID-19 vaccines, with nearly eight million doses of the Moderna vaccines discarded due to drying-up demand in Canada and around the world.

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Dampen the Canadian economy during an already bleak period, for no effect globally and hard estrangement in the West? We are seeing some vigorous pushback from both Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — and long overdue it is. The federal government is a partner, not a ruler in this Confederation. And federal diktats, especially on climate change, should be contested rigorously.

It is encouraging to see some premiers push back.

More generally, climate confabs are losing their standing. Unhappily as it must seem, these sad gatherings of rich nations lecturing poor ones, billionaires offering guidance to peasants, are dropping all lustre and credibility.

To add to this disjuncture, a “climate” conference in drear Egypt, not an Eden of human rights, is more than a little “off.” Are those who nominate themselves as green, as warriors for the planet, as super-sensitive citizens of our global world, happy with the country they chose for their broodings?

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In the 2017-18 school year, there were 125,980 teachers plus 9,054 early childhood educators overseeing 2,020,301 students. Now we have 130,923 teachers, plus 10,072 early childhood educators for a student population of 2,025,258. We’ve gone 16.1 students per teacher in 2018 to 15.4 last year and the government is still hiring more people.

In 2017-18, the total education budget was $29 billion, it’s now more than $32 billion with spending increasing every year and hiring increasing every year as enrolment is flat.

Now, let’s talk about the contract agreement and wages.

CUPE’s initial ask was for 11.7% annual increases for three years, the government’s offer was 2% per year for four years. The government came up to 2.5% for the lowest paid workers and 1.5% per year for those making less than $43,000 per year.

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That’s on par with most collective agreements reached this year according to the data collected by Statistics Canada. So far this year, the national average wage settlement is 1.8%, even lower than the 2% the Trudeau government is offering federal workers.

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Before Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced he would rescind his use of the notwithstanding clause to ban an education union from striking, labour leaders discussed a potential nationwide protest that would have temporarily shut down not just the province’s auto plants, but the country’s ports and even the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island.
In the end, the full-scale show of force never happened. It was called off last Monday after Mr. Ford and his Education Minister, Stephen Lecce, decided they would back down.
National union leaders say the goal of the potential protest was to go beyond supporting the Ontario education union, which represents 55,000 school caretakers, education assistants and other support workers. They had hoped to send a message to other governments across the country thinking of following Mr. Ford’s example and stripping public-sector workers of the right to strike.

Silly Doug! Only Justin can do this sort of thing.

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If you need help, ask the Americans:



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