Justice Issues In Canadian Society
By: Council of Canadian Bishops
In Canadian society, there are many great things that everyday people do to make the place they live in much more. Charity is a big contribution to our society; almost everyday, people donate money and clothes they grow out of to help the less fortunate out. General kindness is a wonderful thing to see from one person to another; from holding the door open for an elderly person, to giving money to the homeless, kindness can be seen everywhere. The knowledge and good will to do the right thing is also another wonderful thing in our society.
The social justice principles that are being discussed in this document are: distributive justice, social justice, legal justice, and
…show more content…
The largest of all these social problems is discrimination; the definition of discrimination is “treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to rather than on individual merit” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination). According to this definition, many people daily are being judged because of their race, gender and social status. Along with discrimination, disrespect of elders and common people is just as bad as the latter. By finding solutions to these two society issues, Canada would be a better place to …show more content…
Discrimination is an obvious example; by discriminating people because of race, gender, poverty status and age, it goes against all the social justice principles. By discriminating against a certain group of people, the government or everyday people strip them of their given rights, which is not at all acceptable. An example of racial discrimination in legal justice is refusing to hire a black man just because of his skin color, even though he is more qualified than the next person to be hired. This, of course, is illegal now but still occurs in less extremes. Another example of sexual discrimination is refusing to allow a female in the Senate; this happened in the 1800's, but is still a great example of sexual discrimination. Social status is another form of discrimination; every time someone passes a less fortunate person begging for money, the automatic response is that they put themselves into that position because of drug or alcohol addictions. This is also another form of discrimination against these less fortunate people. Discrimination against age leads to disrespect of elders and teenagers; disrespect is another society issue that is still present today. The virtue of distributive justice gives the example of welfare programs for the unemployed and elderly; the average people who have never heard of welfare and do not understand the concept are the ones discriminating against those who rely on that extra money to
Canada achieved a just society by changing the civils rights in Canada so everyone was equal. Canada has achieved its goal in becoming a just society by revising civil rights to be less discriminating against black people. Black Discrimination continued into the 1950’s despite the 1944 Racial Discrimination Act prohibiting it. In 1954 two black people had visited Dresden, Ontario and were refused service in two restaurants. “The Toronto Telegram sent Black ‘testers’ to investigate, [They] were also refused service.
SOCIAL JUSTICE refers to the concept of a society in which justice is involved or achieved in every aspect in life. As part of individuality in the society they have to have social justice
By applying the principles of social justice in our identification of health priorities, we can determine the impact these principles have on reducing health inequities and improving the health of the nation.
Canada as a just society has changed a lot throughout the years, Canada has and still is a discriminative place but I believe it has definitely improved but there are still changes that need to be made. However,As said Canada has changed for the better andit has improved a lot since her older days, and not everything will always be perfect, a conflict will always arise and maybe we cannot always solve the problem. Canadian identity has been working towards a just society but it has been negatively affected by how they have treated minorities in World War One, with aboriginals in residential schools, the enactment of the War Measures Act in a time of peace and the continued LGBTQ discrimination.
Inequality in Canada is not as prominent as many other places around the world, although it does remain in certain segments of Canada. There are many forms of inequality in Canada and internationally, although this papers main focus is going to be the inequality of wealth. According to Steven Kerstetter “Canadians may view their country as a land of opportunity, but it is also a land of deep and abiding inequality in the distribution of personal wealth” (Kerstetter 2002). The “gaps between the rich and poor remain evident in Canadian statistics” (Kerstetter 2002), Canadians have always kept financial security as an essential element of life and have tried to obtain and sustain it within their lives. Frank Cunningham’s article, “What’s
Today, Canada is known around the world as a cultural mosaic. As a nation it welcomes people of both sexes with all different beliefs, cultures, and religions. Creating a mature nation would require promoting equality of opportunity to all and giving help to those who were disadvantaged. However, Canada has not always been a welcoming and mature nation. In the past, women were not allowed to vote alongside men or run for political positions, due to the fact that they were not considered “persons”. As well, Aboriginal children were stipped from their homes, families, and identities so that they could assimilate all First Nations people. During the last century, women have gained more political rights, gained more respect from society, and
Having lived in Canada when I was 8 before the US-Canada magazine dispute occurred, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in Canadian culture. It seemed a perfect culture, built to protect domestic interests and despite the potential division between countries, created a safe environment where people were unafraid to leave doors unlocked, due to almost no crime. The peaceful and respectful nature of most Canadians isn’t just a fluke, the country was designed this way, and one of the primary influencers of this strategy is the media. Watching the news in Canada, the focus is positive, the message is positive, there is no forced fear of sense of doom as we see here in the US. Life is about being sustainable, not so much a struggle to the top of the food chain, but working together, instead of separating and segregating groups. That is except the region of French Quebec; however, Quebec is like a whole new country in itself.
Canada is regarded as one of the wealthiest industrialized countries in the world. This indication is contrary to the well-being reality affecting Canadians. Despite being part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), Canada has lagged behind her otherwise wealthy counterparts in the industrialized countries being position 19 out of 22 nations (Breznitz and Zysman, 2013). This has been attributed to the precarious levels of poverty in a majority of Canadian households. The country has not recognized any official poverty measurement although other universal measures such as LICO is used for measuring relative poverty, a more determinable measure of poverty for wealthy countries.
Social justice helps us in creating human interactions in society and social institutions. These institutions can provide us with what is good for the person and for our associations with others. This happens so long as our institutions are
Currently there are many problems and flaws with the way the Canadian government’s policies deal with healthcare, income inequality and poverty. Time to time changes in policies have been made, perhaps to improve these issues, however, the gap between rich and poor keeps increasing and there is very little improvement in healthcare and the economy. In fact, healthcare keeps on becoming costly. Major issues like income inequality and poverty are not being taken care of by the government. According to Dr. Raphael (2002) poverty is caused by several reasons such as inequality in people’s income, weak social services and lack of other social supports (p.VI). He states, “Poverty directly harms the health of those with low incomes while income
Social justice is that status of the society where “equity” and “just treatment” of individuals exists. It is not limited to safeguarding the rights but also comes with responsibility to maintain a “society for all” providing equal opportunities. A socially just society can be achieved after examining the inequalities and seeking opportunity to curb the same by total elimination. The concept of social justice varies with the different philosophical approaches about the distribution or allocation of resources.
Social justice is the distribution of difference in society and is based on equality and its opportunity.
Social justice is mutually a practice and a goal. The goal of social justice is complete and equal contribution by all people in a society that is equally designed to meet their needs. Social justice allows for all members of society to be physically and psychologically safe and secure. It is a set of values that allow us to understand what is right and wrong in our world regardless of race, culture and economic status. That we take care of those in need of help, so that they can take care of themselves. Social justice allows equal rights and opportunities to everyone in society.
The term social justice is normally used when referring to the ideas of equality and providing equal opportunities to pupils within school, regardless of their background, history or circumstances. Views of social justice can change depending on who is discussing the topic.
The notable differences between classical and contemporary theories of social justice are the way the issue is explored. Differences also occur in the emphasis placed on different aspects of social justice and how to achieve it. The notable similarities seem to be that there is a need for social justice and that to achieve social justice many changes need to occur. Another similarity is the debate that social justice is not an easily achievable outcome.