Policy Note delivers timely, progressive commentary on issues that affect British Columbians, including the economy, poverty, inequality, climate change, provincial budgets, taxes, public services, employment and much more. Contributors include staff and research associates from the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The views expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the CCPA.
The CCPA is an independent, non-partisan research institute concerned with issues of social, economic and environmental justice.
A new study published today by the Frontier Institute for Public Policy finds that Vancouver has the most unaffordable urban housing market not just in Canada, but in all of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
This conclusion is based on a very simple, yet effective measure of housing affordability: the [...]
Next week’s election will take place in the midst of an economic crisis which hit our province seemingly out of the blue last fall and hit us hard, causing 69,000 job losses between November and March (the April numbers will be released on Friday, May 8, and are expected to be just as grim as [...]
Tags: campaign·green infrastructure·inequality·Liberals·NDP·Obama·platform·recession·tax cuts·unemployment
With my oped last week on the NDP platform making me less than popular over at NDP HQ, today the Sun published my take on the Liberals’ platform, thereby guaranteeing that the list of Christmas parties I get invited to dwindles to next to nothing.
BC’s Economic Challenges and the Liberal Platform
By Marc Lee
The BC Liberal [...]
Tags: carbon tax·deficit·green infrastructure·greenhouse gas·inequality·Liberals·oil and gas·platform·Port Mann·recession·transportation
Yesterday the CCPA released a new study on family income inequality in BC by yours truly, which reveals some disturbing statistics about family incomes over the past 30 years. Among our other key findings:
The gap between the wealthiest and the majority of BC families has grown dramatically over the past 30 years. The share of [...]
BC’s recession and election together mean things are going to get nasty in the political realm. Already we seeing plenty of sneering commentary from our esteemed cabinet ministers. Consider this jibe from Colin Hansen, the Minister of Finance, in his annual address to the brethren of Sigma Chi:
“I want you to think about one thing. [...]
Tags: campaign·employment·inequality·Liberals·NDP·Olympics·recession·tax cuts
Minister Hansen donated money for shoes for poor children. Then he delivered a budget that doesn’t help parents who receive income assistance or who are working for the $8.00 per hour minimum wage to buy shoes for their own children. An act of charity that will help several children today compared to [...]
Tags: budget·child poverty·childcare·inequality·living wage·minimum wage·welfare
According to the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD), 15% or about 1 in 7 children in BC suffer from a mental health problem serious enough to cause significant distress and impair their development and functioning. In children, mental illness supersedes all other health problems in terms of the numbers affected and the degreee of impairment. Think about [...]
