The International Labour Organization published a report this week on world youth unemployment that seems to have some relevance here in British Columbia. The study, Global Employment Trends for Youth, outlines the devastating impact the recession has had on young people worldwide. More than 80 million people aged 15 to 24 were unemployed at the [...]
Keith Reynolds’s Blog Posts
Keith Reynolds is a National Research Representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. He has done policy work for all three levels of government. Keith maintains a Facebook page in honour of BC cheese.
The impact of the recession on young people
August 13th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Children & youth, Economy, Employment & labour
The Smart Tax Alliance. Non-Partisan? Really?
August 8th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 4 Comments · Provincial budget & finance, Taxes
Last Thursday BC newspapers carried a large ad supporting implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax. The advertisement was signed by the “Smart Taxation Alliance” a group of 30 or so employer organizations. The ad carried the usual dubious arguments that transferring the cost of taxes from corporations to consumers will create vast economic activity. What [...]
12 year olds at work: cuts, strains, dislocations and fractures
August 4th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Children & youth, Law & legal issues
Last month the Medical Officer of Health for the Sea to Sky Region published an article in a Squamish newspaper raising his concerns about child labour in British Columbia. In his column Dr. Paul Martiquet reports that in BC the minimum age for working a regular job is 12 – the lowest of any jurisdiction [...]
The U.K. having problems with its P3s
July 27th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · Education, Health care, Privatization, P3s & public services
Britain, which led the charge for public private partnerships under both Conservative and Labour governments over the past decades, is now seeing problems with the projects. This month the new coalition government cancelled the controversial Building Schools for the Future program. Michael Gove, the Conservative Secretary of State for Education said the P3 school program [...]
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The Census: Evidence based decisions better than decision based evidence
July 14th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 8 Comments · Transparency & accountability
There is beginning to be a lot of discussion about the decision by the Federal government two weeks ago to drop the compulsory long form census. Armine Yalnizyan, a senior economist with the CCPA was one of the first people to raise the issue in an open letter to the Minister of Industry who is [...]
Tags: Census·long form census
Good news from the BC government – with a couple of caveats
July 10th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Health care, Provincial budget & finance
The BC government’s announcement July 9th that it had signed a deal on generic drugs with the province’s drug stores is good news. As discussed in an earlier blog, British Columbians have been paying far more than consumers in other jurisdictions for generic drugs. Alberta, Quebec and Ontario had already taken steps to correct this [...]
Tags: generic drugs·PharmaCare
British Medical Journal links social spending cuts to increased mortality
June 29th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 2 Comments · Health care, Poverty, inequality & welfare
An article and an editorial in this week’s British Medical Journal outline the very high cost of cutting social programs. The article’s authors look at social spending in the OECD and find changes in social spending directly related to changes in mortality. Even more, they find the impact of social spending on health to be [...]
Tags: health·spending cuts
If the Taxpayers Federation gets its way, we can be just like California
June 21st, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 8 Comments · Municipalities, Taxes
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Maureen Bader is inciting a tax revolt for municipal taxpayers. If she gets her way, maybe we can be just like California. Last Friday the Globe and Mail published an article in their business section outlining how Los Angeles area apartment owners in the mid 1970s financed a campaign against municipal [...]
Tags: tax cuts·Taxpayers Federation
New BC generic drug plan could save millions – but maybe not for everybody
June 18th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Health care, Provincial budget & finance
Very, very quietly, the BC provincial government is negotiating new arrangements for the purchase of generic drugs that could save the province hundreds of millions of dollars. Done right, all BC taxpayers will win as more money becomes available for other health services. Done wrong, much of the savings for the province’s PharmaCare program will [...]
Tags: generic drugs·PharmaCare
Quebec Auditor General slams P3s in hospital project
June 11th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · Privatization, P3s & public services, Transparency & accountability
Quebec’s Auditor General has issued yet one more report slamming the use of public private partnerships (P3s). With P3s, private corporations finance and operate public facilities and services. The money they invest is more costly than money borrowed publicly. It is paid back to them, along with profits for the corporation, by governments over multi-decade contracts. [...]
