As we emerge from the financial crisis, a new and welcome debate is beginning about how we stabilize and strengthen our pension system. The financial crisis provided a rude (and in some cases surprising) reminder to many retirees (and near retirees) that their private pensions are far from secure. Many took a beating on their [...]
Entries from October 31st, 2009
Strengthening the CPP: Maybe the Americans are on to something
October 31st, 2009 · Seth Klein · 1 Comment · Economy, Taxes
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BC’s GHG emissions shell game
October 30th, 2009 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · Climate change, Environment, resources & sustainability
The BC government recently announced a new climate action of some consequence: the phasing out of the Burrard Thermal plant in Metro Vancouver. The unit was used largely for back-up purposes, producing electricity for BC Hydro to supplement hydropower during times of high demand. But at a large GHG cost per unit of energy — [...]
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CPRN: RIP – the loss of an independent voice
October 30th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · Transparency & accountability
There was sad news yesterday for those of us who are policy wonks and for anyone else who pays serious attention to public issues in Canada. After 15 years of public policy research the Canadian Policy Research Network is closing its doors. The organization’s president, Dr. Sharon Manson Singer announced they were no longer financially [...]
Tags: CPRN
Climate deniers – what more evidence will it take?
October 28th, 2009 · Seth Klein · 9 Comments · Climate change
In this lead up to the Copenhagen meetings, it seems to me that we’re seeing a distressing up-tick in activity from the climate denial crowd. You’d think we’d be well past this point now. Some people seem prepared to take the lack of 100% agreement as a legitimate justification for inaction. That’s illogical. I’m a [...]
Tags: greenhouse gas
Planning for a Green Vancouver
October 28th, 2009 · Marc Lee · 3 Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Poverty, inequality & welfare
Last week, the City of Vancouver’s task force, the Greenest City Action Team, issued a plan for the city with short and longer-term goals and policy advice on achieving them. The report covers more than climate change, a good thing as it is important to identify win-wins that lead to improvement on other environmental, health [...]
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Carbon Capture and Storage: Magic Bullet or Delusion?
October 27th, 2009 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · Climate change, Environment, resources & sustainability
Depending on who you talk to, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is either the face of climate salvation or the height of delusional behaviour associated with our favourite hallucinogenic drug, fossil fuels. I have read both cases and suspect that the truth is somewhere in between, but I’m not an engineer either so it has [...]
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Fun and Games
October 18th, 2009 · Marvin Shaffer · 8 Comments · Economy
I don’t really get the Olympics resistance stuff — the Games are coming and we may as well make the best of them. Admittedly I’ll be in Baja — traffic avoidance knows no bounds in our household. But I still think B.C. cannot be any better off by making the Olympics more disruptive than they [...]
Tags: Olympics
The catch-22 of low-income benefits that are phased out quickly
October 9th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 8 Comments · Children & youth, Employment & labour, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes, Women
My friend Emily is a single mom. She works full time for a salary that keeps her and her child above the poverty line but doesn’t allow for much more. Her income is low enough that she qualifies for temporary relief from paying her student loans (which are massive even though she is yet to [...]
HST: Why do the Feds want it so bad?
October 7th, 2009 · Seth Klein · 4 Comments · Economy, Taxes
As the debate rages in BC about the Harmonized Sales Tax, one curious dimension I’ve been puzzling over is this––why do the Feds want the HST implemented so badly that they are willing to fork over $1.6 billion to the province as an enticement? And it isn’t just the federal Conservatives. Ever since the introduction [...]
Canada-US Clean Energy Dialogue – worrisome signs
October 7th, 2009 · Marjorie Griffin Cohen · Comments Off · Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
In February 2009 the US and Canada initiated a joint effort to deal with climate change issues through the US-Canada Clean Energy Dialogue (CED). The CED`s working group issued its Action Plan on Sept. 16th. Much of the plan is encouraging, particularly priorities around clean energy technologies and research and development. But there are a [...]
