Cardus is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying & strengthening the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.
Hamilton, ON
- Tweets 11,641
- Following 1,555
- Followers 5,532
- Likes 2,483
Kudos to Calgary city council, who recently passed a motion that will make it easier for independent schools to lease surplus Catholic, public, or Francophone schools on an interim basis without having to go through processes related to zoning. This common sense change will help ease the overcrowding in Calgary-area schools.
While the pedagogy, philosophy, and community culture of each individual school are what give it its own unique flavour, the basic structural function and use of the building is the same. Miring independent schools in paperwork and costs while equally burdening city administration with bureaucratic processes is redundant. @calgaryherald
bit.ly/4xOPcYh
1
3
249
Do we think police officers become better police officers by buying sex? Judges? Teachers?
In this clip, prostitution survivor and anti-trafficking advocate Trisha Baptie asks the questions that are too-often ignored in our debate about the normalization of "sex work." A world where men can buy women's bodies for their own pleasure isn't a more just or equitable world. It's a world that is less safe and more exploitative for women.
Read more on why prostitution is incompatible with human dignity and the common good in our new report.
Link to the full report in the comments ⬇️
1
2
256
Read the full report: cardus.ca/research/work-econ…
45
Canadian students remain among the world's stronger performers. Their latest results should still trouble parents and policymakers.
The 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tested 15-year-olds in science, reading and mathematics, and recently published their results. While scores fell across much of the world, Canada experienced an especially sharp long-term decline. Since 2015, our average science score has fallen 23 points. Reading is down 29 points since 2018, while mathematics dropped another 12 points since 2022. Roughly 20 PISA points represent one year of learning.
Many of the challenges driving this downward trend have already been identified and they risk becoming entrenched. Attendance scores and device bans aren't going to reverse the trend alone. This is why Joanna DeJong VanHof, our Program Director of Education, has argued that Canada, as a whole, should examine the structure of its education systems.
bit.ly/4hqavcA
2
172
Cardus retweeted
. @TristinHopper is right. You can see an international comparison of euthanasia regimes in work that @cardusca does. Links below.
Canadians don't realize that their country's *official practice standards* tell doctors and nurses that it's their duty to tell patients, unsolicited, that death is a treatment option. No other country with legal euthanasia does this. In fact, it's usually illegal to do so.
2
1
12
746
Marriage is correlated with improved health and wellbeing, economic advantages, and increased social mobility for the adults. Marriage is also associated with higher fertility, and kids growing up in stable, married family households also enjoy improved outcomes over other family forms.
Despite these benefits, the married parent family has been in decline for decades, even as desires to have children and get married remain high.
That decline is not even, however. Read more about our latest report, the Canadian Married Family Index, in @TheHubCanada.
bit.ly/4hoWv2T
3
8
309
Writing in @TheHubCanada after yet another attack on our Jewish neighbours, Father Deacon Andrew Bennett says:
"My friend asked me what I thought was the greatest problem facing the country. My response was “whatever,” by which I meant Canadian complacency. Whether it is our failure to boost economic development, to tackle the rising cost of living, or to address our challenges with defence procurement so as to renew our military, the response from so many of us ends up being a shrugged “whatever.”
We accept things just as they are and, in so doing, fail to fully take any responsibility as citizens to care for our country, to demand better accountability from our leaders, or to speak out against those ideas and those individuals that seek to violently disrupt the peace."
bit.ly/3TfTwBV
8
12
2,458
"Sex work is work" is a catchy mantra. According to Andrea Heinz, that's exactly the problem.
In this clip, the survivor and anti-trafficking advocate explains how the phrase shuts down necessary conversations about what's actually happening to women, and lets society off the hook from supporting victims and survivors.
Andrea's insight echoes a central argument of our new report: language that sanitizes prostitution does real harm.
Link to the full report in the comments ⬇️
1
1
4
309
Read the full report here: cardus.ca/research/work-econ…
69
Families are already paying to fill the gaps in Alberta’s education system. Strengthening Alberta’s system of educational choice is the right way forward.
Polling conducted by the Angus Reid Institute for Cardus finds one in five parents pays for tutoring in core subjects, and two-thirds of them spend $100–$500 a month—about the same as tuition at many independent schools. Meanwhile, 67 percent of Alberta parents say all students deserve government-funded access to the education that best fits them.
Educational choice lets that funding follow the student, not just the system. Everyone benefits—families, society, and most importantly, the students themselves, who get an education that best fits their unique needs.
Learn more about educational choice at bit.ly/4zRbb32.
#ABEd
1
3
6
497
Schools should be about learning more than knowledge - kids should also learn wisdom.
While recent training provided to York Region District teachers told educators they should "disrupt the status quo rather than uphold various forms of oppression", our President, Canada @BrianDijkema said it's actually parents who should be fighting the ideological status quo in Ontario schools, which are not serving students well. @am640 @gregbradyx
1
3
257
"We all have fundamental human dignity that can never be taken away no matter what's been done to us or what we do. That's the basis for human rights and fundamentally treating each other well. I am hopeful that we can change how we talk about [the issue of prostitution].”
@CatholicRegistr @renzenauta
catholicregister.org/item/43…
2
221
Prostitution is a fundamentally abusive system. So, what do we do about it?
In our new report, Cardus Work and Economics program director @renzenauta lays out three concrete policy steps:
1️⃣ Keep the Nordic model—criminalize buying sex, not the people selling it
2️⃣ Drop euphemisms like "sex work" that misrepresent what prostitution really is: a violation of human dignity and harmful to the common good
3️⃣ Fund real exit supports for the women and men trying to leave
Link to the full report in the comments, where you can read more from Nauta about why these policies are so crucial ⬇️
1
2
6
307
Read the full report: cardus.ca/research/work-econ…
85
The married family is in decline across every province and territory in Canada—but not at the same pace, or for the same reasons.
Cardus's Canadian Married Family Index, published today, combines the total fertility rate, the share of adults aged twenty-five to fifty-four who are married, and the share of children aged zero to fourteen living with married parents, tracked against each province and territory's own 2001 baseline.
Though the married family remains the most common family structure for raising children in Canada, our research finds it has declined in every province and territory over the past twenty years. The pattern is uneven: Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and the territories saw the steepest declines, while Ontario and the provinces west of it saw the mildest. Nunavut's score fell twenty-nine points, the largest drop in the country.
What's driving the gap between regions—and what it means for our society and the policymakers responding to it—is the subject of our new report. Link to the full report in the comments ⬇️
2
3
8
1,302
Read the full report ➡️ cardus.ca/research/family/re…
1
1
98
Cardus retweeted
Le vendredi 2 octobre prochain, l'économiste français @OlivierBabeau sera de passage à Montréal.
@cardusca vous invite à une discussion avec lui sur l'avenir de l'université à l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle.
Inscription 🎟 : eventbrite.ca/e/quel-avenir-…
3
3
491
Cardus retweeted
New episode out now!
Andrea Heinz speaks to @renzenauta of @cardusca, a non-partisan think-tank in Canada, about his recent report titled "Is '#SexWork' Actually Work? Human #Dignity, #Liberty, and #ProstitutionPolicy in Canada". They trace the history of the prostitution debate in #Canada, policy results of a #NordicModel with only partial implementation, the reality for exploited women, and why, at its core, #prostitution is incompatible with dignified labor, genuine economic liberty and human flourishing.
Links to listen in the follow-up tweet.
1
2
6
209
An all-staff presentation for teachers at a York Region District elementary school referred to educational institutions as "tools of white supremacy" and emphasized the need to "dismantle the systems and structures of white supremacy rather than engage in debate about whether these lived realities exist".
The presentation comes one week after an annual international education assessment found Ontario learners are falling even further behind.
Cardus Canada CEO @BrianDijkema worries many of Ontario's schools and school boards are prioritizing divisive ideologies over teaching children. @am640 @gregbradyx
1
1
3
317