Month: April 2015

The living wage calculation is based on the needs of two-parent families with young children, but the idea behind it is that this wage would also support different types of families throughout the life cycle so that young adults are not discouraged from having children and older workers have some extra income as they age. In… View Article

Last week, federal finance minister Joe Oliver re-affirmed that his government seeks to double the annual limit to Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), from $5,500 to $11,000. This is a terrible idea. When the TFSA was first introduced, the claim at the time was that the policy was intended to support modest income people wanting to… View Article

Ah, here we go again – when seeking to assert credibility as sound fiscal managers, governments reach for the tired gimmick of “balanced budget legislation” (BBL). It’s not about good economics. Nor about good public policy. Just crass politics. And now the federal government is once again dangling this useless policy ploy. The CCPA-BC was… View Article

In February and March, the Climate Justice Project hosted This Changes BC: A Conversation on Climate Justice. Over four Saturdays, a group of 34 citizens from Metro Vancouver gathered to talk about what climate solutions could look like in their lives and our province. Having worked on these issues for many years now, we had a… View Article

There’s a popular belief that parents chauffeur their young children everywhere. And certainly parents have many reasons for preferring cars over other modes of transportation: Children get easily tired. Parents need to pack things like food, diapers, etc. Parents want to keep their children comfortable and safe. Parents have busy and complicated schedules and taking… View Article