weeping_angel

https://nitter.snopyta.org/DrewPavlou/status/1645763544531730432

:yea:

This week’s federal budget quietly cut the support offered by the Canada Student Grant program, which is designed to support low-income and marginalized students, from a maximum of $6,000 per year to $4,200 per year.

However, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland used creative math and confusing language to present the cut as a $1,200 “increase” in support for struggling students.

Buried in the 2023 Budget, the federal government indicates it is cutting the Canada Student Grant from $6,000 per year to $3,000 per year, but also simultaneously offering an “enhancement” of $1,200.

In other words, after cutting the grant from $6,000 to $3,000 and adding $1,200, the grant now works out to $4,200 – or, an effective cut of $1,800 per year from what students had been receiving since 2020:

“When COVID-19 disrupted students’ lives, the federal government responded by doubling Canada Student Grants — income-tested support that hardworking, ambitious young people receive when the cost of going to school is out of reach for them and their parents. This meant students could receive up to $6,000 in up-front, non-repayable aid each school year, for three years starting in the 2020-21 school year. This support is currently set to expire on July 31, 2023. But with life costing more and with students still in need of support to afford an education, the government knows it is important that students can afford to pursue their dreams.”

Despite cutting Canada Student Grants by $1,800 per year, the budget describes the cut as “increasing Canada Student Grants by 40 per cent – providing up to $4,200 for full-time students.”

Elsewhere, the “fiscally responsible” Budget promises to find cuts to other programs by 2026.

Specifically, The budget resolves to“reduce government spending by $7 billion over four years, starting in 2024-25, and $2.4 billion ongoing,” and “work with federal Crown corporations to ensure they achieve comparable spending reductions.”

All told, the budget plans for total cuts of $14.5 billion in public spending.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ozempic-canada-british-columbia-1.6793114

The data showed two pharmacies accounted for 88 per cent of B.C.'s Ozempic sales to American residents. Dix said both businesses were in Metro Vancouver, but did not name them.

Ninety-five per cent of prescriptions to those pharmacies were written in Nova Scotia, data showed

https://halifax.citynews.ca/amp/national-news/bc-wants-federal-clamp-on-weight-and-diabetes-drug-ozempic-being-exported-to-us-6768578

VICTORIA — British Columbia wants a federal government clampdown on prescription rules after thousands of doses of the hyped weight loss drug Ozempic went to Americans, doled out by a single practitioner in Nova Scotia.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said Tuesday that he's asking provincial and federal regulators to look into two Metro Vancouver pharmacies and the Nova Scotia practitioner responsible for thousands of Ozempic prescriptions issued to Americans in the first two months of 2023.

In the first two months of 2023, Dix said upwards of 15 per cent of Ozempic prescriptions in B.C. were being filled for American patients who receive the medication by mail.

Dix said the situation involving Ozempic is "unacceptable," and noted that less than half a per cent of other drugs in B.C. are prescribed to non-residents.