Today, thousands of low wage workers in Ontario are getting a raise of 75 cent per hour, as the province’s minimum wage goes up to $10.25. This makes Ontario the first province to pass the $10 mark, but several other provinces are following closely. Newfoundland’s minimum wage will increase to $10 in July, as will [...]
Entries from March 31st, 2010
BC’s minimum wage is now 22% lower than Ontario’s
March 31st, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 7 Comments · Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare
Tags: minimum wage
Keeping emissions underground
March 26th, 2010 · Marc Lee · 3 Comments · Climate change
I was intrigued by a quote in a recent Globe Foundation report on BC’s green economy that BC has 1000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, a “low carbon resource opportunity for both transportation and for export to other economies around the world.” Converting to metric, and using BC government emission factors for combusting [...]
Tags: GHG emissions·natural gas
In defense of the stimulus
March 25th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 3 Comments · Economy, Taxes
Earlier this week, the Fraser Institute published a controversial report which argued that the government stimulus did not do much for economic growth in the last two quarters of 2009, suggesting that government spending on infrastructure was useless. While their analysis suffers from serious shortcomings, which I outlined in a previous blog post here, their [...]
Tags: fiscal policy·government spending·recession·recovery·role of government·stimulus
The role of stimulus spending in the recovery
March 24th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 1 Comment · Economy, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability
Yesterday, the Fraser Institute published a new report, which argues that the government stimulus did not drive Canadian economic growth in the last two quarters of 2009, suggesting that government spending on infrastructure was useless for the economy. The report earned the scorn of Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who called it ”poorly done and it’s [...]
Tags: Economy·Fraser Institute·recession·recovery·role of government·stimulus
Victoria’s billion dollar P3 decision
March 16th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 4 Comments · Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities, Privatization, P3s & public services, Transparency & accountability
On March 24th the Victoria area’s Capital Regional District (CRD) is going to make a billion dollar decision. The province has ordered the CRD to end its controversial practice of pumping raw sewage into the ocean. But it has also ordered the CRD to consider using a public private partnership (P3) for the project. Regardless [...]
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Peddling GHGs: How much does BC export?
March 16th, 2010 · Marc Lee · 10 Comments · Climate change, Energy
Bill Rees, the father of the ecological footprint, likes to say that fossil fuels are a powerful hallucinogenic drug. We are all addicted to cheap and abundant fossil fuels, and so have reshaped our economy and society in fundamentally unsustainable ways. When emissions are reported for BC or Canada, there is an accounting convention that [...]
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More Please!!!
March 9th, 2010 · Marvin Shaffer · 2 Comments · Economy, Energy
Every now and again you read something so outrageous you have to laugh. So it is with the report recently released by BC Citizens for Clean Energy: A Triple Legacy for Future Generations. The essence of this lobby group’s proposal is that the government should develop an export policy for green energy targeting up to [...]
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Assistance recipients on government hit list
March 8th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 11 Comments · Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance
Last week CBC reported cuts in social assistance services for British Columbia’s most challenged citizens. The story received almost no coverage in most other media, so it is probably worthwhile just to highlight what the government thinks must be cut to pay for their deficit. On March 4th the government issued a press release with [...]
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Women in the Canadian Economy
March 8th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 6 Comments · Children & youth, Economy, Women
Last weekend, I spoke at a community event celebrating International Women’s Day in Vancouver. It got me thinking about the status of women in the Canadian economy, reflecting both on the successes over the last half century and on the areas where work is still needed to achieve gender equality. As a young woman in [...]
Tags: gender inequality·Women
Climate inaction and BC’s budget
March 3rd, 2010 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · Climate change, Provincial budget & finance
The 2010 BC Budget was a disappointment on the climate action front. Even as Premier Campbell waxed poetic in the Globe about the impact of climate change on the 2010 Spring Games – with its sunny days, crocuses, daffodils and by the end, cherry blossoms making it fun for people on the street but a [...]
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