Archive
An effective poverty reduction plan is not just a piece of paper
Dec 2, 2014
Last week, First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition published its annual report card on child poverty in BC. As in past years, the results were sobering. Based on 2012 data, 20.6% of children, or one of five, live in poverty in BC. Nearly half of children living in single parent families live below… View Article
Refuting the tired claims of those opposed to minimum wage increases
Nov 28, 2014
In a Vancouver Sun opinion piece, Laura Jones of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business warns against minimum wage increases, calling it “Fa-la-la economics”. Perhaps it’s not the season to be so Grinch-like. Jones is right about one thing – the minimum wage is not a magic cure for our economic woes. No one has… View Article
It’s time to seriously tackle child poverty
Nov 24, 2014
One in five BC children lives in poverty. This is the sobering finding of the 2014 BC Child Poverty Report Card released on November 24th, the 25th anniversary of a unanimous all-party resolution in Canada’s House of Commons to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Child poverty is not just a big… View Article
How to create good jobs in BC
Nov 20, 2014
Five years have passed after the end of the Great Recession but both BC and Canada as a whole are very far away from a meaningful recovery in the labour market. Headline unemployment rates are not terrible (6.1% in BC and 6.8% in Canada) but fewer people are looking for work and part-time positions are… View Article
How the Pie is Sliced in BC
Nov 19, 2014
It’s an interesting finding, and perhaps the start of a good trend: the share of income going to Canada’s top 1% has declined (Statscan release here, Globe story here). One great thing Statscan has done in recent years is to make its data freely available, so I went to dig deeper on national, BC and… View Article
Child care unaffordability in Canada’s cities and what to do about it
Nov 10, 2014
A new report from the CCPA takes a closer look at child care fees in Canada’s biggest 22 cities and shows just how unaffordable child care has become everywhere outside of Quebec, the only province in Canada with universal subsidized child care. It’s hardly news that child care is expensive. Indeed, it is pricier than… View Article
Time for a Different Approach
Nov 8, 2014
It may be the heat here in Baja, and certainly the tequila could be taking its toll on clear, or at least correct thinking, but it seems to me that there is a better policy answer to Kinder Morgan than outright rejection of its pipeline and terminal expansion proposal, and a far better policy approach… View Article
New BC Auditor General report finds public private partnerships double the cost of borrowing
Oct 30, 2014
British Columbia’s new Auditor General, Carol Bellringer, published her annual report on government’s 2013-14 summary financial statements today and it contains some pretty interesting highlights. First of all, and for the first time, the AG has published a comparison of how much it costs the government to undertake projects on its own compared to using… View Article
What is the “right amount” for local governments to spend?
Oct 23, 2014
Just how much money should a local government spend? If you ask the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) or the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) you will always get the same answer: they should spend less. Oddly, taxpayers sometimes disagree. The Fraser Institute produced a report this week titled Comparing Municipal Government… View Article
A BC framework for LNG, part two: the LNG income tax
Oct 21, 2014
Well, we saw this coming but it’s still sobering to see it in black and white. The BC government’s decision to cut its proposed LNG Income Tax in half (from 7% to 3.5%) is simply a cave in to industry. It’s massive giveaway of a public resource to global corporations by a desperate government who put… View Article
A BC framework for LNG, part one: the carbon benchmark
Oct 21, 2014
The BC government’s proposed carbon pollution benchmarks for LNG plants leave much to be desired. The package is an impressive display of cognitive dissonance: thanks to BC’s inconvenient law, the 2007 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, along with its carbon tax, the BC government has cultivated a reputation for being a climate action leader; there’s even… View Article
Solidarity and Persistence in the Welfare Food Challenge
Oct 21, 2014
My clinical, community, and research work revolves around the relationship between poverty and health. I am privileged to hear the stories of patients who are struggling. I get it, I think to myself, and I’m committed to making a change. Do I need to do the welfare food challenge to help me do this? Probably… View Article
Let’s Not Go There Again
Oct 17, 2014
You would think that the fiasco of the government forcing BC Hydro in recent years to buy run-of-river and other IPP supply that it didn’t need, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, would have put that unfortunate policy on the back burner for a long time. Not so. Clean Energy… View Article
Density, condos and housing affordability
Oct 16, 2014
How is it that we have seen a non-stop construction boom in Vancouver over the past decade-plus and yet we still have huge homelessness and affordable housing problems? In the Figure, based on data from the BC Economic Accounts, it’s pretty clear that as a society we spend a lot building new housing. It varies cyclically but over the… View Article
Competitiveness vs public benefits: the LNG tax and regulatory regime
Oct 7, 2014
This Fall’s legislative sitting will be an important one for shaping the future of LNG in BC. Will one or more companies make final investment decisions? And if they do will there be any public benefits? One of the key questions is whether the BC government will cave on its proposed 7% LNG income tax rate. Industry has… View Article
How public services strengthen the economy
Sep 22, 2014
With teachers and students now going back to school, much of the province seems to be breathing a sigh of relief. But I’m not convinced we’ve made any substantial ground when it comes to understanding the important role education and other public services play towards both social and economic wellbeing in this province. The Premier’s… View Article
Feds and provinces push billions in costs down on to towns and cities
Sep 18, 2014
It is all too easy to get lost in “today’s issue” when we look at things without realizing they are part of a larger pattern that affects our lives. Desperately needed public transit in the Lower Mainland becomes a political football with competing interests and imposed referendums. In the Capital Regional District plans for sewage… View Article
If the political will is there, the money is too to settle teachers’ dispute
Sep 13, 2014
I’ve submitted the following Letter to the Editor to the Vancouver Sun. Hoping they publish it in the next couple days: Enough with the pleas of a bare cupboard from the Premier, Finance Minister and Education Minister. If the political will is there, there is plenty of money to settle the teachers’ dispute, hire more… View Article
Why teachers are still striking
Sep 12, 2014
Speech to the Langley Teachers Association’s Public Forum on Education Delivered July 16, 2014. Check against delivery. I have a slightly different take because I don’t come from the labour movement or from the education sector – I come as an economist, so I’m going to talk a little bit about numbers. But before I… View Article
BC’s Awkward Surplus
Sep 11, 2014
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance reported results from the first quarter of 2014/15. While the news release stated “B.C.’s budget remains balanced in spite of extra costs,” there is a projected surplus of $266 million for the current fiscal year. In reality it will likely be much higher, due to the usual practice of using conservative planning… View Article