Month: May 2016

A string of revelations about tax avoidance have made headlines in recent months, from the Panama Papers, to KPMG Canada’s tax shelter business, to a local incident involving a UBC Board member who resigned after losing a tax avoidance case in BC Supreme Court. These revelations have fuelled a mix of outrage and cynicism about… View Article

I have been a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation for over 30 years. A significant portion of my practice involves injured workers who have developed chronic pain and have been denied compensation by WorkSafeBC (WCB). Workers with injuries that heal in weeks or a few months are usually treated well by WCB and get… View Article

We sit less than a year away from the next provincial election in BC, and the legislature has now closed its doors for the summer. It’s a good time to reflect on an important, big-picture question: what kind of path are we on in this province when it comes to public policy? While recent economic… View Article

For more than a century, it has been known that asbestos causes disease and death. But the asbestos industry suppressed scientific evidence, created lobby organizations and hi-jacked public policy. Canadians, and people around the world, have paid the price with their lives. The economic costs have also been enormous, with billions of dollars spent on… View Article

At both the Paris climate negotiations last November and the recent federal-provincial climate meetings, Premier Christy Clark was keen to position British Columbia as a climate leader. There may indeed have been a short window during the 2008-2010 period when BC could legitimately (albeit arguably) make such a claim; when the province introduced the carbon… View Article

The long-awaited report on the consultations by the Provincial Office for the Early Years (POEY) about early childhood planning in BC was released on Wednesday. This review, nearly a year in the making, looked at the meager early years community planning dollars allocated by the Ministry for Children and Family Development through the Children First and Success… View Article

The public and media response to my new study on affordable housing  exceeded expectations. I anticipated some really strong pushback against my proposals, because they’re pretty radical in today’s context where private sector development is taken for granted, and global capital flows into local real estate go largely unquestioned. By and large, the report was covered… View Article

If California’s farmers ever run out of the water needed to irrigate their crops, we’ll be in for a rude awakening. With 70 per cent of British Columbia’s imported fruits and vegetables coming from the sunny US state, any climatic disaster there would almost certainly result in dramatic run-ups in food prices here. Our elected leaders… View Article

Hello readers and followers! As you can see, we have a brand new look thanks to our fine friends at Affinity Bridge. We had two goals with the redesign. First was just to get a bit more in step with the times. Goodbye narrow columns and small font — hello white space, pretty pictures and… View Article