Ontario does have a strong and modern child welfare system. In a letter published late last year the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS) stated that, "Ontario has the lowest number of children in care in Canada, per capita, second only to Prince Edward Island. All of these results demonstrate that more children are finding permanent homes and families. Ontario has a modern system designed to find customized solutions for children."

In the same letter they listed what they saw as challenges or areas with room for improvement: Read more »

At the end of this month Katie and I will be taking part in the Put Food in the Budget Challenge. For the last week of January we will be eating what two people who rely on the food bank would receive. Here’s a list of what’s on the menu. Read more »

This is a cross post from www.gpo.ca

Last year 65,100 Ontarians were diagnosed with cancer. Of those, 27,900 have since passed away. Sadly, these tragic statistics are expected to worsen over the next decade.

Cancer is agonizing for families and it takes a huge toll on our health care system and economy. We spend over 2 billion dollars per year providing care to those fighting cancer and the indirect costs have soared to 5 billion annually.

The good news is that approximately half of all cancers are preventable. The bad news is that illness prevention comprises only 0.35% of the budget, placing us behind other provinces. Read more »

I'm pro-police.  I like police, I think they are necessary.  I generally try to give them the benefit of the doubt when I hear complaints from protesters or other activists.  The way I see it they are under a lot of stress in situations like these and often have to react with not nearly enough time to weigh their options or think of the consequences.  I often have the impression that while there are some bad apples the vast majority of officers are good people who are working with the orders they are given.  However, after seeing this: Read more »

For some reason my benefits package at work covers everything except my eyes and teeth. I'm pretty sure that I have a absurd amount of drug coverage (that I never use) as well as disability coverage for a wide range of work place injuries that quite frankly are things I would worry about if I worked in a factory or in construction but that I'm not exactly concerned about happening at my desk.

Anyway I haven't been to a dentist in a while and since nothing is really bothering me with my teeth I have not been motivated to go see one. However two of my bottom front teeth are bumping into one another a bit and while I don't really think it's a problem I probably should go check it out.

So I called a dentist that's close to my office to see what their prices were and this is what I learned: Dental Care is run by the mob. It has to be. Their prices are ridiculous. Read more »

I picked up my new bike up on Saturday morning.  It's awesome, so much faster than my old bike and much more suited for the type of cycling I do.

Earth Hour was fun although cold.  Also while we cheered when the lights on Parliament went out it was disappointing to turn around and see the lights on in all the office buildings down town.  However, I'm sure that we'll here about how Canadians from coast-to-coast turned out the lights and spent an hour watching the third period in the dark.

It was great to see so many people on the hill with their candles.  CTV was there and I think I saw a couple other TV cameras.  Congrats to Kevin and the other volunteers!

As I've mentioned before I've been reading the book Nudge and it's really great!  They tell a quick story about a power provider in California who (to help customers conserve energy) started displaying the average consumption of their customers on each bill so that customers could compare their usage to the average usage. This resulted in customers who used more power than average reducing their usage which was the intended effect.  However customers who used less power than average started using more energy. To limit this problem they added a smile / frown face to the bill beside the average.  Customers who used more power than average continued to conserve more.  The simple graphic helped customers who where already doing better than average stay above average (they wanted to keep that smiley face).  Read more »