Archive

Protests around BC and the rest of the country have put Indigenous issues front and centre in discussions of Canadian politics and energy policy. Approved by the BC government, TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink pipeline would run through Wet’suwet’en territory and the company argues it is in the broader “public interest” because of “substantial benefits to First… View Article

Our take on BC Budget 2020

Feb 18, 2020

By Iglika Ivanova and Alex Hemingway

BC Budget 2020 is light on new announcements. It largely marks the final year of implementation of the ambitious three-year plan set out back in 2018 to tackle some of our biggest social and economic challenges head on. The good news is that it delivers on key commitments made (and even ups the amounts slightly… View Article

Will the BC government ramp up its affordable housing efforts in Budget 2020?

Feb 12, 2020

A lack of affordable housing continues to be a top issue in Metro Vancouver and more broadly in BC. Since 2016, and in particular the 2018 BC Budget, we have seen some important tax policy changes from the provincial government in response to skyrocketing home prices. These new taxes primarily focus on wealthier homeowners by… View Article

Lessons from the Squamish Nation’s ambitious new rental housing plan

Feb 6, 2020

As we face a severe housing crisis in Vancouver, the Squamish Nation is poised to add 6,000 new homes—mostly market rental housing—to its 11 acre reserve lands in Kitsilano. This will create a major new ongoing revenue stream for the Nation, while providing rental homes to help ease Vancouver’s ultra-low vacancy rates. The Sen̓áḵw project… View Article

BC needs to significantly boost supply of public assisted living

Feb 5, 2020

By Andrew Longhurst

Too many seniors in our province struggle to find publicly subsidized assisted living where they can be supported as they age. Amidst an affordable housing crisis felt across generations, the need to significantly boost the supply of subsidized assisted living is more urgent than ever before. Assisted living is a type of supportive housing for… View Article

A surplus at all costs? Balanced budget fixation hurts BC

Jan 20, 2020

Almost every year at budget time, BC governments of all stripes predict public coffers are going to be worse off than they’re likely truly expecting. This habit is usually portrayed as harmless or even prudent, but when the budget room available to us is systematically underestimated, it distorts the scope of public debate. Budget lowballing… View Article

Peace River Frack-Up

Jan 9, 2020

Part 1 of a report on how fracking poses risks to BC Hydro’s Peace River dams Read Part 2 of the report View timeline BC Hydro has known for well over a decade that its Peace Canyon dam is built on weak, unstable rock and that an earthquake triggered by a nearby natural gas industry… View Article

The Well from Hell

Jan 9, 2020

Part 2 of a report on how fracking poses risks to BC Hydro’s Peace River Dams Read Part 1 of the report View timeline BC Hydro was so worried that its Peace Canyon dam could be badly damaged if an earthquake was triggered at a nearby natural gas industry disposal well, that it briefly considered… View Article

Happy new year—no more MSP!

Jan 6, 2020

It’s a brand new year, and BC’s Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums are no more. That’s great news because MSP premiums were a very unfair tax (or “regressive” as we economists like to say). In its first budget (in 2018), the current provincial government announced it would phase out MSP premiums by 2020 and has… View Article

Virtual walk-in clinics undermine primary care

Dec 19, 2019

By Rita McCracken, Andrew Longhurst, Ruth Lavergne and Damien Contandriopoulos

Despite efforts by the BC government to increase access to primary care, new developments risk making it even harder to find a doctor. BC is one of the only provinces that allows doctors to bill government for virtual phone or video visits without restrictions. This may make it more convenient to see your regular doctor, however, a… View Article

Let’s go big on building affordable non-market rental housing

Dec 11, 2019

To fully address Metro Vancouver’s housing crisis we need an ambitious build-out of 10,000 new units per year of non-market, rental housing. This includes public housing and co-ops that are truly affordable for ordinary households. New investments from the BC and federal governments point to a modest revival of public, non-market housing, but these investments… View Article

Eliminate and replace it: A better way to reform the basic personal tax amount

Dec 10, 2019

The new federal Liberal minority government has signalled that a tax cut will be its first order of policy business. That’s a shame because this tax cut will do little for those with low incomes while providing the most benefit to higher income households—and there are better ways to benefit Canadians who need the help…. View Article

An electrifying announcement leads to more questions than answers

Dec 5, 2019

In late August, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Vancouver to announce that the federal government had agreed to financially support a new hydroelectric transmission line project in British Columbia’s remote northeast region. In a memorandum of understanding signed with the provincial government, the federal government committed $83.6 million to the project, which will cover… View Article

Property taxes in Vancouver are still too low, fueling inequality and speculation

Dec 2, 2019

We’ve heard a lot of griping recently about Vancouver’s proposed property tax increase for 2020, but missing from the debate is a reality check on the city’s extremely low tax rates. Vancouver’s property tax rate is, in fact, the lowest in North America, at just $2.56 per $1,000 in assessed value—or 0.26%. Why is Vancouver’s… View Article

Canada Pension Plan fuels climate crisis

Nov 21, 2019

By James Rowe, Jessica Dempsey, Zoë Yunker and Steph Glanzmann

“Financial experts say millennials will have to save an entire planet to retire,” says the satirical Beaverton. This is funny because it’s true. Less humorously, many pensions designed for retirement security are contributing to the climate emergency with their investments. Such is the case with the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), one of our country’s largest… View Article

Inquiry needed into gig work in BC

Nov 14, 2019

By Mark Thompson and David Fairey

The BC government recently decided to permit the operation ride-hailing services, which are scheduled to begin before the end of the year. Other services, like the delivery of restaurant meals, use similar systems to dispatch workers. Yet the provincial government has yet to address a crucial element of this system—the rights and protections of workers… View Article

BC Government Fossil Fuel Subsidy Data Finally Public

Nov 13, 2019

For more than two years, the British Columbia government has vigorously fought efforts to compel the release of information on the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies that it doles out to fossil fuel companies each year. It has either refused outright to release documents or it has handed over pages of essentially worthless… View Article

Canada’s fossil fuel lobby influences policy and decisions for major federal government projects

Nov 8, 2019

By Bill Carroll, Nicolas Graham and David Chen

There’s no doubt that climate change and fossil fuel extraction were vote determining for significant sections of the population in the federal election. These issues dominated the federal leaders’ debates and since September we’ve seen hundreds of thousands across the country join student-led climate strikes demanding more robust climate action. Such demands are likely to… View Article

2019 Rosenbluth Lecture Recap: David Green on Basic Income

Oct 29, 2019