Besides the carbon tax, one of the most important BC government climate action initiatives has been the adoption of Carbon Neutral Government. That is, count emissions from public buildings and travel, reduce them as much as possible and pay for carbon offsets to negate the rest. As of the 2010 calendar year, the BC government [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Provincial budget & finance'
Deconstructing BC’s carbon neutral government
July 13th, 2011 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · Climate change, Privatization, P3s & public services, Provincial budget & finance
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BC’s Regressive Tax Shift
June 28th, 2011 · Marc Lee · 3 Comments · Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes
With much of the talk on taxes in BC about the HST, we issued a new report today that looks at the bigger context for BC’s tax system (Vancouver Sun oped here, CTV News story here). Iglika Ivanova, Seth Klein and I compare and contrast BC’s tax system after a decade where tax cuts were [...]
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Social Determinants of Health
June 7th, 2011 · Peter Prontzos · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Employment & labour, Health care, Housing & homelessness, Human rights, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes, Women
It is now clear that economic, and social variables – more than individual behaviour – are the most salient factors in determining people’s well-being. Working and living conditions, the distribution of wealth, and where we live are some of , “the primary factors that shape the health of Canadians” (CCPA Monitor, June 2010). Almost everything [...]
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About Fracking Time: BC’s Independent MLAs Call on Premier to Investigate Hydraulic Fracturing
May 27th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Provincial budget & finance
As British Columbia Premier Christy Clark makes her debut in the provincial legislature this coming week, the media spotlight will likely be on the predictable verbal sparring between her and Adrian Dix, the NDP’s recently minted leader, over Clark’s alleged “fix” of the Harmonized Sales Tax. Meaning that Independent MLAs Bob Simpson and Vicki Huntington [...]
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On the Forest Fire Front Line: One Ecologist’s Take on What it Will Take to Safeguard Communities
May 13th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 8 Comments · Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities, Provincial budget & finance
With one of the colder springs on record, many British Columbians quite naturally yearn for a good stretch of warm, dry weather. But for many people in the province, prolonged periods of hotter and drier weather are often far from welcome. That’s because when things get hot and dry they burn. And in many regions [...]
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Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing
February 23rd, 2011 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · Climate change, Environment, resources & sustainability, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes
Today, we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing: Lessons from BC, by yours truly. I’m excited about getting this paper out into the world, given that climate policy seems to have fallen off the radar in BC – even as we are seeing daily evidence of the impacts of [...]
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Hats off to you, Mr. McKimm
February 17th, 2011 · Keith Reynolds · 3 Comments · Education, Environment, resources & sustainability, Provincial budget & finance
In the mountain of material presented with the 2011 BC Budget (OK, much of it was an electronic mountain) there was one remarkable nugget of candor. Each ministry and agency is required to prepare a Service Plan that is published with the Budget. These were initiated originally to provide more transparency in government work. Over [...]
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Much ado about the provincial debt
February 16th, 2011 · Iglika Ivanova · 2 Comments · Economy, Media, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability
If you read Vaughn Palmer’s online budget analysis in the Vancouver Sun, you’d be forgiven thinking that deficit hysteria is making a comeback in BC. The title of his online piece, Debt Hits Historic High, disappoints with its blatant sensationalism. Yes, it is technically true that in straight up current dollars debt hit a historic [...]
BC Budget Commentary: where is the debate on new priorities?
February 16th, 2011 · Iglika Ivanova · 3 Comments · Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance
For what was billed as a no-news budget, the 2011 February Budget is causing quite the splash in the media. In the absence of policy changes to discuss, the size of the provincial debt has emerged as the main issue of debate. Is it growing too fast? Is it going to become a problem when [...]
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The Vision Thing
December 6th, 2010 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · Climate change, Environment, resources & sustainability, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance
For many years now, the year 2010 has had an almost mythic quality to it. More than just a decade-ending round number (we never collectively named that decade; I like “the naughties” myself), it had deep meaning for BC because THEY WERE COMING. The Olympics. Vancouver 2010. In the early days, utopian olympianism ruled the [...]
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