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 [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Municipalities'
Victoria’s billion dollar P3 decision
March 16th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 4 Comments · Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities, Privatization, P3s & public services, Transparency & accountability
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Corporations are people too
January 31st, 2010 · Blair Redlin · 3 Comments · Electoral reform, Municipalities, Taxes
Advocates of democratic electoral reform are really out of step. Ideas like proportional representation and advertising spending limits are so retro, so 2004. The fashionable electoral reform idea this year is to give corporations a real say. It’s time for individual citizens to share their electoral democracy with corporations to give meaning to those old [...]
Tags: accountability·B.C. government·corporations·democracy·Electoral reform·Municipalities·STV & electoral reform
The business elite’s parking tax backlash
January 8th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 5 Comments · Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities, Privatization, P3s & public services
The media is reporting a “backlash” against the new parking tax in Vancouver. The Vancouver Sun reports it is a “slickly organized” backlash being run by Vancouver’s business elite. This is apparently a 30 member business coalition including the Board of Trade. This is not the first time Vancouver’s business elite has gotten organized around [...]
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Vancouver City Budget Woes: Are the Cuts Really Necessary?
December 3rd, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 6 Comments · Economy, Municipalities, Taxes
In this round of municipal budgeting, the city of Vancouver finds itself in exactly the same predicament as the federal and provincial governments faced earlier in the year – projected revenues would not be sufficient to meet their rising expenditures. The big difference is that municipal governments are prohibited by law from running a deficit. [...]
Property taxes: are major industries suffering?
November 3rd, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities, Taxes
Businesses across Canada have been complaining about what they pay in property taxes, well, since there were property taxes. But the issue in BC came into sharper definition in July when Catalyst Paper hand-delivered cheques to four municipalities that only covered 25% of their property tax bill. Timberwest, Celgar and West Fraser Timber joined Catalyst [...]
Tags: Castlegar·Catalyst Paper·Celgar·Kitimat·Timberwest·West Fraser Timber
Where's Our Danny Boy (2)? Mayor of embattled town weighs in on needed forest reforms
May 11th, 2009 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities
Few British Columbia communities have been hit as hard by the forest industry crisis as Mackenzie. Some 1,500 jobs, by mayor Stephanie Killam’s estimate, have been lost in the community as sawmills, planer mills and pulp and paper mills closed. With hundreds of good paying mill jobs gone, jobs in related service industries have disappeared [...]
Tags: Canfor·Danny Williams·Interfor·Mackenzie·Newfoundland·pulp and paper·unemployment·West Fraser
Happy April fools day. Welcome TILMA
April 1st, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Municipalities, Privatization, P3s & public services
As of April 1st, the people elected to run our municipalities and school boards had better think twice before they make a decision that might affect the profits of a corporation. On April 1st the Trade Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) between Alberta and British Columbia comes into full force. Its implications are far [...]
Tags: Council of Canadians·free trade·recession·Steven Shrybman·TILMA
Food as a right of citizenship
March 19th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Housing & homelessness, Municipalities, Poverty, inequality & welfare
I came across an interesting piece in YES! Magazine about a city in Brazil that took an innovative approach to poverty reduction and practically ended hunger by adopting a food-as-a-right policy. Belo Horizonte, the fourth largest city in Brazil, has a population of 2.5 million people, slightly larger than the Lower Mainland. The city grappled [...]
Tags: food security·poverty
Beggar-thy-neighbour politics in Metro Vancouver
March 13th, 2009 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Municipalities, Taxes
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts made the news this week calling for property-tax-free zones in Surrey to attract new business to her city. Of course, in a climate where businesses are not making new investments, this will at best lure businesses from other parts of Metro Vancouver. Economists call these beggar-thy-neighbour policies because you can only [...]
