“29 year old describes difficulties of landing a job post-2008″. Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick prints a letter from a 29 year old reader who eloquently describes his attempt to negotiate the incredibly tough job market post-2008. This column is a must read for all Canadians.
This is a reminder that Maude Barlow will be speaking on Wednesday, May 16 at the First Unitarian Church, 170 Dundurn Street South. The doors open at 7:00 and the program begins at 7:30 p.m.
In addition to Maude, the program will include presentations by Mark Mattson (Lake Ontario Waterkeeper), Lynda Lukasik (Environment Hamilton), and students in the Environment Club of Hillfield Strathallan School.
My fellow New Democrat,
The Harper Conservatives are playing games with our country’s future, and I need your help to hold them accountable – right now.
They are trying to ram hundreds of pages of harmful measures through Parliament – without adequate study or debate.
Their Budget Implementation Act is a massive, 425-page bill that will:
gut environmental assessments;
cut public pensions and job standards;
weaken public health care services;
threaten fisheries and resources; and
reduce democratic accountability.
The Conservatives have rejected our constructive proposals to study and debate this Trojan Horse bill. So it comes down to all of us, working together, to hold them accountable.
As your Official Opposition, we have launched our own budget review sessions across Canada.
Now we need to hear from you. Click here to speak out: budget2012.ndp.ca
Nathan Cullen
NDP House Leader
CUPE Ontario is running a series of weekly one-minute actions against the Ontario Budget. This week’s action calls for the repeal of Section 28, the Government Services and Service Providers Act, which would give government the power to privatize any public service behind closed doors! This could affect public hospitals and schools.
Visit budget.messageyourmpp.ca to automatically send an email to your MPP that voices concerns over Section 28 and calls for its repeal. (And forward the link to your friends!)
t.
The Hamiltonian provokes an interesting discussion by asking how Hamilton can live up to its motto “The Best Place to Raise a Child.” Read the comments here:
http://www.thehamiltonian.net/2012/05/perspectives-virtual-panel-on-best.html
If it passes, Harper’s Bill C-31 “Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act” will enact far reaching changes to Canada’s refugee system. The government claims that this bill will “streamline” the refugee claim process, helping legitimate refugees gain asylum faster by weeding out fraudulent claims. In reality, Bill C-31 is a deeply flawed bill that concentrates unprecedented powers in the Minister’s hands, creates a two-tiered system of asylum claims, institutes mandatory detention for certain classes of refugees, and promotes family separation rather than reunion.
A concise explanation of what Bill C-31 will mean for refugees can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnpyvFHc2Xg&feature=player_embedded
Take action against Bill C-31 by sending a letter to your MP like the one suggested by Amnesty International:
http://www.amnesty.ca/iwriteforjustice/take_action.php?actionid=843
Mother’s Day was meant to be “a radical revisioning of what is possible when you put mothers at the center of things.” Strong Families’ “Mother’s Day Our Way” blog entries offer an alternative view of Mother’s Day that challenges outdated notions of motherhood and the family while reminding us of the holiday’s feminist roots: http://www.reproductivejusticeblog.org/
Also be sure to check out, Strong Families’ alternative Mother’s Day cards, which celebrate motherhood in all its wonderful diversity: www.mamasday.org
In a Letter to the Editor printed in Wednesday’s Hamilton Spectator (May 9), Federal Riding President Trish Strung expresses her disgust at St. Joseph’s new starting wage for home care workers.
Disgusted by Home Care Salaries
I am disgusted to hear to that St. Joseph’s Home Care can now pay home care workers a starting wage nearly a dollar below the living wage in Hamilton. This is no cause for celebration. To make matters worse, St. Joseph’s runs a program to teach immigrant women to be personal support workers and home care workers. The hardworking newcomers who graduate from this program can now be assured of a job that will not offer a living wage, with no benefits.
I am a senior citizen who may need the help of these wonderful caregivers one day. When will we begin to value work done in the patient-care service areas by paying home care workers and personal support workers what they are truly worth? The top-heavy management at CCAC is certainly not making poverty wages nor is the head of St. Joseph’s Home Care. This is a sham of a system where bidders on home care can actually get away with paying slave wages.
Thank you to reporter Joanna Frketich for exposing this shameful issue. Now it is time to take this issue to the politicians to fix it.
Trish Strung, Ancaster
The Star’s Chantal Hébert suggests that the paradigm in Quebec is changing – protests are now grounded in social justice rather than nationalism or constitutional differences. But, there is a fine line between social activism and stridency, which she argues will be crossed more frequently.
The NDP surge in 2011 is indicative of this new paradigm.
CATCH reveals that the Feds knew about the recently discovered contamination at the Hamilton Airport.
http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=1074
For background on this issue,see these earlier CATCH articles:
http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=935
and:
http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=920