Month: January 2015

Yesterday was Bell Let’s Talk Day 2015.  You might have heard about it.  According to Bell, a record 122,150,772 Bell Let’s Talk tweets, texts, calls, and shares on January 28, 2015 translated into a new donation of $6,107,538 to mental health initiatives. Let’s Talk is a multi-year campaign focused on four “action pillars” related to… View Article

The existence of poverty in British Columbia is a violation of human rights. There is not only a moral duty to eradicate poverty but also a legal obligation under international human rights law. Just before the holidays, December 10 was International Human Rights Day but we have little to celebrate here in BC. A human… View Article

The Fraser Institute is really concerned that public sector employees might be making more than private sector employees. What is notable about the recent Fraser Institute report on public and private sector wages in British Columbia is that it does not seem particularly concerned with the reasons why there are variations in public and private… View Article

I’m a fan of carbon taxes, but increasingly I see the term “revenue-neutral” attached to it. Where I live, in BC, we have perhaps the most prominent example of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and carbon tax advocates have come to promoting the BC model to other jurisdictions, such as Ontario, who are contemplating their own carbon tax…. View Article

This piece originally appeared on Blogging for Equality. Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights Issues Breakthrough Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls The Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights has provided a direct answer to Prime Minister Harper: Yes, the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls are a ‘sociological phenomenon’. The Inter-American Human… View Article

Jock Finlayson’s article “Income inequality not a problem in Canada” misses the point. Just because inequality in Canada is somewhat lower than in the U.S. (the Western world’s most unequal country) doesn’t mean we don’t have a serious problem. The small decline in the share of income going to the top one per cent Finlayson… View Article

The BC Finance Ministry has produced a report much more critical of Partnerships BC and its activities around public private partnerships (P3s) than might have been expected by a province so committed to the practice. It raises issues of conflict of interest, dubious practices and questionable assumptions in the multi- billion dollar program. The story… View Article

Last month Ontario’s Auditor General issued her annual report. One of her targets was Ontario’s use of public private partnerships to build public infrastructure. As the Toronto Star put it, “Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk has taken a wrecking ball to the (Ontario) Liberals’ use of private money to bankroll new hospitals and transit…” Lysyk’s report… View Article