Denham goes to Britain – and takes some BC freedom of information issues with her

Sep 9, 2016
Elizabeth Denham—British Columbia’s former Information and Privacy Commissioner, who aggressively pushed freedom of information and privacy issues here—is now doing a similar job in the United Kingdom. After approval from Queen Elizabeth, Denham was appointed UK Information Commissioner on July 15, 2016 – and in at least one important area she is going further than she… View Article

Potential profits big enough to justify a massive lawsuit: 6 things you should know about the Cambie trial

Sep 8, 2016
The biggest constitutional trial “perhaps ever” in Canada is now in court. The future of our publicly funded health care system is at stake. Putting Canadian Medicare on trial is complex, and vulnerable to the blatantly false and simplistic messaging that increasing “private care” will take the pressure off public wait lists, increase patient choice,… View Article

5 reasons why private surgeries won’t shorten waits in the public system

Sep 7, 2016
After years of delay, Dr. Brian Day’s case against the BC Government is now being heard in BC Supreme Court. Day and his private for-profit Cambie Surgery Centre are challenging the parts of the BC Medicare Protection Act that prevent doctors and private clinics from directly billing patients for medically necessary procedures; in other words,… View Article

Privatizing public infrastructure is enormously costly. Let’s not repeat the mistake.

Sep 1, 2016
An announcement is expected next week on a plan for the long-awaited Victoria wastewater treatment plant, which has been the subject of ongoing controversy about its need and location. But one question has received much less attention: will this roughly billion-dollar piece of infrastructure be publicly owned and controlled, or will it be handed over… View Article
BC Education Minister Peter Fassbender at Mary J. Shannon Elementary school.

What’s the real story behind BC’s education funding crisis?

Aug 24, 2016
This spring school boards across the province experienced budget crises, raising questions about funding for elementary and high school education in BC (kindergarten through grade 12). Despite provincial government claims that education funding is “at record levels” funding has actually shrunk substantially as a share of BC’s overall economic pie, and fallen almost $1,000 per… View Article

How the so-called “Clean Energy Plan” still wreaks havoc on BC Hydro’s rates

Aug 22, 2016
My wife says I hold on to things too long. Still, when I read BC Hydro’s most recent rate application to the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC), I couldn’t help but recall Mark Jaccard’s spirited—if misguided—defence of Premier Gordon Campbell’s Clean Energy Plan in a critique of a paper, Lost in Transmission, that I co-authored in 2007. BC Hydro is seeking approval for… View Article

The BC government’s updated climate (non-)plan: This is not leadership

Aug 19, 2016
Today, after many months of delay (on a Friday afternoon in summer), the BC government finally released an updated “Climate Leadership Plan.” Except it isn’t one. It’s not a plan, it’s not leadership, and it doesn’t get us nearly where we need to go on climate action. I see no notable shift from what I wrote… View Article
Photo by Garth Lenz

Fracking, earthquakes and hydro dams? Don’t worry. We have an understanding.

Aug 17, 2016
This is the second of two posts. Read the first here. Efforts by BC Hydro to ban potentially destructive natural gas company fracking operations in the vicinity of its biggest dams fall well short of what an Alberta hydro provider has achieved, raising questions about why British Columbia isn’t doing more to protect public safety…. View Article
Photo by Garth Lenz

Big dams and a big fracking problem in BC’s energy-rich Peace River Region

Aug 16, 2016
Senior BC Hydro officials have quietly feared for years that earthquakes triggered by natural gas industry fracking operations could damage its Peace River dams, putting hundreds if not thousands of people at risk should the dams fail. Yet the Crown corporation has said nothing publicly about its concerns, opting instead to negotiate behind the scenes with… View Article

The wrong direction: A presentation on the proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion

Aug 10, 2016
Presentation to the federal Ministerial Panel holding consultations on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Proposal Presented in Burnaby, August 10, 2016 Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Seth Klein, and I am the BC Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Our office has spent the last eight years hosting the… View Article

Dependence on tips leaves women workers vulnerable to sexual harassment

Aug 8, 2016
Recently tipping in the restaurant industry has been the subject of two national opinion polls, both of which suggest the public is divided on the ingrained social practice that is tipping. In early May, the CBC conducted an online poll asking, “Is it time to end tipping?” Only about 12 percent said No, while over… View Article

Correcting the Fraser Institute’s crude assumptions

Jul 25, 2016
The Fraser Institute’s new report, The Costs of Pipeline Obstructionism, claims that lack of new export pipelines to tidewater is costing Canada $2.02–$6.4 billion dollars per year (depending on the assumed oil price). The authors offer the following table, based on exports via the proposed Energy East pipeline, as evidence (Table 1 from page 10… View Article

The BC economy’s unbalanced and inequitable growth

Jul 22, 2016
Skyrocketing property transfer tax revenues have been in the news the past few days, but the bigger story, well-documented in a recent Huffington Post article, is how dependent the entire BC economy is on the unsustainable and socially damaging housing market. It is instructive to reread the 2012 BC Jobs Plan to see how far… View Article

A little-known election is limiting your free expression rights

Jul 14, 2016
You might not have noticed it, but since June 4th there has been an election going on in British Columbia – and legislation that governs that election severely limits what people can say about the issues relating to that election (and how they can say it) until the election is completed on July 20. The election… View Article

BC should eliminate the MSP. Here are two better options.

Jul 6, 2016
The MSP has been in the news a lot in recent months, and with good reason: it’s an unfair tax that needs to be eliminated. The BC government announced some reforms to MSP in Budget 2016, in response to mounting pressure from grassroots organizations like the BC Health Coalition, concerned citizens and both opposition parties…. View Article

BC needs to get to work on working poverty

Jun 29, 2016
Over 100,000 working-age people in Metro Vancouver were working but stuck below the poverty line in 2012, not counting students and young adults living at home with their parents. This is the striking finding of my new report, co-published by the CCPA, the United Way of the Lower Mainland and the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition…. View Article

The international trend to public energy

Jun 28, 2016
The most Canadians probably know about the new mayor of London, England is that he is the city’s first Muslim mayor and that one of his first public actions was to scrap with Donald Trump over the Donald’s promise to block Muslims from entering the United States. But there are a lot more interesting things going… View Article

Yes, a $15 minimum wage makes economic sense for BC

Jun 28, 2016
I was excited to see one of the two main political parties in BC — the BC NDP — promise to raise the minimum wage to $15 if elected next spring. This puts the idea of a $15 minimum wage squarely on the political agenda. I’ve long argued for the need to significantly increase BC’s poverty-level minimum wage… View Article

Why austerity is a problem for just transition and climate action

Jun 22, 2016
Last year we launched the Corporate Mapping Project, which is investigating the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry in Western Canada. One of the first things we did was hold a series of community meetings with environmental, Indigenous and labour groups to discuss the project. We did this in each of the three… View Article

BC has every reason to back CPP enhancement

Jun 20, 2016
Christy Clark could be a critical swing vote in shaping the future of the Canada Pension Plan, as federal officials meet with provincial premiers in Vancouver on Monday. If a stable, secure retirement for all Canadians is the aim, our leaders should commit to boldly expanding this bedrock national pension program. Instead, BC’s provincial government… View Article