Former Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis arrested at OWS
City governments and police that are arresting Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters are making a big mistake.
Authorities who refuse to work on the problem are breaching democratic rights to free speech and free assembly. Continue reading
Wheelchair cut out at Charlottetown Mall
People in wheelchairs don’t take long to come up against barriers in Charlottetown, PEI.
The City of Charlottetown has the appropriate by-laws for accessibility but will not enforce them.
Continue reading
The 99% protest at Occupy Toronto (photo CBC)
The Canadian and US tax systems reinforce the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1%.
It will take a major shift in how the government structures the tax system to see any transfer in wealth from the 1% to the 99%. Continue reading
Leo Steven and Health Minister Carolyn Bertram at odds with surgeons (image: Guardian Heather Taweel)
Five Charlottetown area orthopedic surgeons threatened a partial withdrawal of services to bolster their demand for more operating room services. Continue reading
UPEI Professor Sean Hennessey, working for Tourism Research Centre at UPEI or himself?
The rising scandal of fraud at UPEI has retiring President Wade MacLauchlan sending in his chief janitor Gary Bradshaw to sweep it under the carpet.
Allegations of fraud have been made about the operations of the Tourism Research Centre at UPEI in a letter to the Canada Revenue Agency.
According to the letter (ATL) and statements in the PEI Legislature, the husband of the Dean of the School of Business set up a shadow to defraud the government and or UPEI.
Using that company he was able, through a connection in the Department of Tourism, to divert funds that should have gone to UPEI and to obtain duplicate payments for himself. Continue reading
Will Sean Casey use the RCMP to protect Canada from $10 minimum wage? (CP PHOTO/Aaron Harris)
A local NDP radio ad It’s You Money reminded Charlottetown voters that Liberal candidate Sean Casey has opposed increases in the minimum wage.
$285 an hour is enough money to live like a rich man. Casey’s income is about $350,000 per year.
Someone living on minimum wage earns $18,000 annually which is the poverty line in Charlottetown.
Why doesn’t he want ordinary Islanders to earn a living wage?
Sean Casey earns more than 2o times the minimum wage. That’s enough to afford luxury vacations for skiing, golfing, the Caribbean, a cottage, luxury cars, and a luxury home. Continue reading
Faye Martin, director of PEI seniors policy " We would hope that this is not the type of thing that would happen frequently"
There is more to the death of Elizabeth Berrigan than the Province of PEI wants to admit.
Nor is the media telling the whole story.
Berrigan was a person living with a disability in a subsidized government housing unit and largely abandoned despite her needs.
Berrigan’s ignominious and tragic end – alone and dead in her apartment for five months – should be a wake up call that things are not OK. Continue reading
60 year old woman lay dead in her apartment for 5 months (photo Google Street View)
A 60-year-old disabled woman was found dead in her apartment Tuesday this week in Charlottetown.
She died apparently in November 2010, almost five months ago, of natural causes. Continue reading
We Didn't Start The Fire
Boomers will win Jeopardy on Billy Joel’s recitation of news headlines as song lyrics in the 1989 hit We Didn’t Start the Fire.
The headlines cover 1949 (the year Joel was born) to 1989. It’s a list song like Bob Dylan’s Everything is Broken.
Sometimes songwriter’s create list songs when they are bored. Millions of people found Bill Joel resonated with them in We Didn’t Start The Fire which hit the top ten charts around the world.
The video depicts a post war family going through the 50′s, 60s, 70s and 80s with kitchen decor changes as clues. She looks amazingly like Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy.
We may not have started the war but we sure like to keep them going.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g']
Canada Revenue kicks people in wheelchairs with DTC project audit (photo Stephen Pate)
Recent stories about alleged Disability Tax Credit (DTC) fraud are another chapter in the decade old battle of Canada’s tax man against people with disabilities.
Canada Revenue Agency had a project to deny the DTC prior to 2001. That year it tried to disqualify hundreds of thousands blind, mentally ill and wheelchair bound Canadians with a single letter.
Ten years later the battle continues with an attack on firms who help people with disabilities get passed the complex bureaucracy that enshrouds the DTC.
While National Benefit Authority is the prime target, Canada Revenue has targeted all the firms that prepare the DTC forms. The Toronto Star and CBC are making headlines with stories that distort the real situation.
The Disability Tax Credit is a non-refundable tax credit worth $1,100 annually. It is allowed by law for people who have a severe and prolonged mental or physical impairment. Generally it only applies to people who are working and earning an income, since it is non-refundable. Continue reading
Jack Layton, NDP leader with Jeanne-Le Ber
NDP Leader Jack Layton has released a substantive election platform for the much-anticipated 2011 Canadian Election.
Layton lays out a comprehensive program for women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal , multicultural and LGBT Canadians.
Where are the Liberals on human rights?
Stephen Harper has the RDSP, a savings plan for the upper middle class who have children with disabilities which isn’t much help.
Here’s the NDP platform for the disabled. Continue reading