There’s a freight train heading for BC’s education system — and it’s not being driven by government or teachers. This train hit the tracks long before the current collective bargaining dispute. Its operator is an eight-year-old boy from North Vancouver, named Jeffrey Moore. With the support of his family, Jeffrey is driving a human rights [...]
Entries Tagged as 'service cuts'
Christy Clark, George Abbott – meet Jeffrey Moore
March 14th, 2012 · Jonathan Chapnick · 3 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Human rights, Law & legal issues
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. [...]
The recent secretive, haphazard spending cuts should be repealed
September 23rd, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · Children & youth, Economy, Education, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability, Women
Almost daily we wake up to news of yet another important program or initiative whose funding has been cut by the BC government. Literacy initiatives, high school sports, programs that protect women and children from violence, arts and culture: hardly an area of social service provision has been spared. These cuts have been devastating to [...]
Tags: accountability·budget·children·deficit·role of government·service cuts·Women
Piecing together the puzzle: help us track BC government cuts
September 17th, 2009 · Sarah Leavitt · 4 Comments · Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability
Since winning the May election, the provincial government has been steadily cutting public services, often without any public announcement. These cuts affect services ranging from the arts to seniors’ care to public schools. They will be particularly hard on the most vulnerable members of our society. In the absence of comprehensive information from the provincial [...]
Tags: service cuts
And from the department of kicking kittens……
September 10th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Provincial budget & finance
Vaughn Palmer asked the Finance Minister a question in the Budget lock-up on the day of the Budget speech. How about a list of all those programs you’re going to cut? No can do, Finance Minister Colin Hansen replied. You’ll just have to wait until the Public Accounts are published next year. In the Liberal [...]
Tags: service cuts
People don’t want cuts in government services: Ipsos-Reid
August 28th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · 2 Comments · Economy, Provincial budget & finance
An Ipsos-Reid poll of 800 British Columbians indicates people would rather see a deficit than see public services slashed. The poll was conducted in early August for the BC Federation of Labour. It shows a solid majority of British Columbians disaprove of the way the government is handling the economic downturn. Only 45% of people [...]
Watch out for that train
May 13th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · Economy, Provincial budget & finance
Is it too early to start talking about what happens now the election is over? Because that light at the end of the tunnel really is a train. In their February Budget the Liberals said they were going to have a $500 million deficit this year. Nobody believed them then. Marc Lee called the Budget [...]
Tags: budget·deficit·service cuts·tax cuts
School funding an election issue at the local level
April 30th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · Children & youth, Education
It hasn’t particularly reached the level of a provincial election issue, but school funding is quietly percolating along as an issue at the local level. The provincial election overlaps with the time that school boards set their budgets and many of those school boards are making cuts due to lack of funding. A few examples? [...]
Tags: budget·Education·school boards·schools·service cuts·teachers
Oh, about that recession …
April 27th, 2009 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · Economy
BC’s recession started in 2008. That is the upshot of today’s release of Statistics Canada’s Provincial Economic Accounts, which provides the first estimates of BC’s GDP for 2008. Unlike national data, which are provided quarterly and on a timely basis, we have to wait about four months to tally the various provincial beans. These numbers [...]
Tags: Agriculture·budget·campaign·construction·deficit·exports·fishing·forestry·mining·oil and gas·recession·service cuts
The Budget: A Determinant of Health
February 19th, 2009 · Colleen Fuller · Comments Off · Health care
I know this budget is supposed to be good news for health, but I want to argue here that the exact opposite is true. We’ve had a lot of budgets like this in B.C., so this one is in keeping with its right wing predecessors. During the 1980s, for example, the never-ending Social Credit government [...]
Tags: budget·David Gordon·health care costs·living wage·poverty·public sector·service cuts·Social Credit
