Archive
Living Wage Policy: Why Municipal Governments should lead the way
Oct 25, 2011
By Michael McCarthy Flynn and Seth Klein The Living Wage for Families Campaign, along with 54 organizations representing over 300,000 British Columbians, recently issued an Open Letter calling on all municipal election candidates to help low-income families in their cities by passing a Living Wage policy if they are elected (available here). Many families are… View Article
Occupy Canada: media pundits vs. reality
Oct 24, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Canada protests seem to be occupying – and perhaps unhinging – the minds of media pundits – at least, those who are mired in the dogma of “free market” fundamentalism. One recent example from CBC Television came in the form of a personal attack on author Chris Hedges. A well-known American… View Article
Occupation, democracy and coops
Oct 18, 2011
I hung out a while yesterday at the Vancouver Occupation, and was impressed with their efforts at radical democracy. Many in the mainstream press have been quick to pile on for how time-consuming decision-making can be under this model, but perhaps they have not spent enough time in legislatures and committee meetings and public consultations…. View Article
O’Leary breached CBC standards, Ombudsman rules
Oct 14, 2011
It took just a week following the airing of an “interview” on CBC television’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange for the public broadcaster’s Ombudsman, Kirk LaPointe, to rule that the public broadcaster’s journalistic standards had been breached. For all those who saw the segment on the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations – either when it aired… View Article
Are Smart Meters Worth the Cost?
Oct 12, 2011
A notice in my mailbox last week told me that smart meters are going to be installed in my neighbourhood. I’ll admit that the geek in me would like to see real-time information about my energy usage, but as an economist I’m interested in costs and benefits of the program. So far we have seen… View Article
BC’s Top 1%: Doing fabulous, thank you
Oct 11, 2011
Occupy Wall Street has shone new light on the growing gap between the richest 1% and the rest of us (the 99 percenters). But that’s the U.S. right? Surely, our reality is different, eh? As the occupy movement comes to Canada in the coming week, we don’t really have reason to copy these American trouble-makers,… View Article
The Union of BC Municipalities Convention: a potpourri of policy
Oct 2, 2011
For people who follow local policy issues the annual meeting of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) is always chock-a-block with material. Last week’s meeting in Vancouver, which saw hundreds of mayors and councilors along with most of the Cabinet, much of the BC opposition and dozens of groups selling both items and ideas, was… View Article
Fighting energy poverty
Sep 28, 2011
Today we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Fighting Energy Poverty in the Transition to Zero-Emission Housing: A Framework for BC, by yours truly, Eugene Kung (a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre and a steering committee member of the CJP) and Jason Owen (who worked on this project as a student at UBC, now with… View Article
Will the “Jobs Plan” just add to the government trust deficit?
Sep 24, 2011
There has been some very good analysis written about the details of this week’s roll out of the BC Liberal government’s “Jobs Plan.” A number of pieces are on this site. Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova had an excellent column in the Sun. Instead of commenting on the policy thrust, however, I would like to… View Article
A ‘Jobs for Jobs’ Strategy
Sep 23, 2011
It is ironic that within weeks of its much publicized report and stated concern about the upward pressures on BC Hydro rates, the government announces a job strategy that will drive up electricity rates more than anything else — more even than the self-sufficiency policy government has belatedly recognized must go. The plan for new… View Article
Are international students the key to jobs in BC
Sep 21, 2011
The second day of the roll out of the Premier’s jobs agenda was marked by a single announcement made at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. The focus of this piece of the jobs puzzle was ramping up international education and regional skills training. The idea of leveraging education, especially post-secondary education, to boost the economy… View Article
“Climate change starts here: the BC dirty jobs plan”
Sep 19, 2011
We are still on Day One of the Jobs Plan, and the afternoon news is all about proposed liquid natural gas plants in Kitimat, which will take pipelined gas and send it by tanker to Asia. Quoth the Premier: Creating a new industry with the capacity to export B.C.’s natural gas to overseas markets for… View Article
Jobs and BC’s Resource Extraction Mindset
Sep 19, 2011
Day One of the week-long BC’s Jobs Plan: the Premier was in Prince Rupert to announce a commitment to making the port a “gateway” to Asia. Quoth Premier Clark: I am in Prince Rupert today because if you are looking at Canada from Asia, with an eye to investing in our country, Canada truly starts… View Article
The real impact of HST’s defeat on provincial finances
Sep 9, 2011
On Sept 8, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon released a much anticipated update on provincial finances. The Minster’s presentation focused on highlighting the cost of the move back to PST/GST, providing some large numbers for the media headlines, instead of looking at the big picture. In case you missed the media coverage, the provincial coffers are… View Article
So Where is the Science?
Sep 8, 2011
The headline in the Globe today was certainly ominous — “Clark’s Hydro policy threatens to collapse B.C.’s climate change progress, scientist says”. The purported policy change seemed scary — the government might roll back the requirement for BC Hydro to be able to meet domestic electricity requirements in drought conditions. And the scientist’s description of… View Article
On Labour Day, think about unions as an equalizing force
Aug 31, 2011
By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed levels of production. Those who today attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them. Martin Luther King speaking in 1961 On Labour Day 2011 unions in North America are facing historic challenges…. View Article
HST referendum: was the vote split along income lines?
Aug 26, 2011
One of the first things I did after the HST referendum results came out today was look at how different electoral districts voted. I noticed that West Vancouver, North Vancouver and Point Grey had the highest number of “No” votes (to keep the HST) while Surrey and East Van districts had the highest number of… View Article
So the HST was defeated. Now what?
Aug 26, 2011
Earlier today, Elections BC announced the much anticipated HST referendum results. British Columbians have voted to scrap the HST. The best part about having the results is that now we can move on from the narrow issue of what type of sales tax is better and focus our energies on some of the bigger issues… View Article
Public private partnerships under increasing attack in the UK
Aug 19, 2011
While British Columbia continues to invest billions in public private partnerships(P3s), a UK Parliamentary Committee today told its government to “wean itself off the practice.” The Treasury Select Committee found: We have not seen clear evidence of savings and benefits in other areas of PFI projects which are sufficient to offset this significantly higher cost of… View Article
Remembering Gideon Rosenbluth
Aug 18, 2011
Below is the text of the obituary for Gideon Rosenbluth, a renowned progressive economist, and a past president of the Canadian Economics Association. Gideon was a long-time Research Associate of the CCPA, and served many years on our Research Advisory Committee. **** Gideon Rosenbluth January 23, 1921 August 8, 2011 Gideon Rosenbluth died suddenly… View Article