Archive
Oil and our coast – surely southern B.C. as important as The Great Bear
Jun 2, 2011
Like Mitch Anderson, in a must-read feature article in The Tyee, I am perplexed at the comparatively little attention that environmental organizations pay to the growing prospect of massive increases in oil shipments out of the Port of Vancouver. For the last few years, a coalition of environmental organizations, First Nations and others have stepped… View Article
Suspicion about private finance schemes growing in the UK
Jun 2, 2011
On May 16th British Columbia’s Auditor General published a report on Vancouver General Hospital P3 that raised serious doubts about public private partnerships in British Columbia. In the UK, where P3s have been around a lot longer, the doubts are getting even graver. Under P3s, or private finance initiative (PFI) as they are known in… View Article
Here’s what bold climate targets look like
May 29, 2011
Premier Christy Clark recently re-affirmed her commitment to BC’s greenhouse gas emission targets in an open letter to British Columbians. That’s good (and thanks to our friends at the Sierra Club of BC for drawing this to my attention). To remind folks: BC has committed to reduce it’s GHG emissions by 33% by 2020, and… View Article
About Fracking Time: BC’s Independent MLAs Call on Premier to Investigate Hydraulic Fracturing
May 27, 2011
As British Columbia Premier Christy Clark makes her debut in the provincial legislature this coming week, the media spotlight will likely be on the predictable verbal sparring between her and Adrian Dix, the NDP’s recently minted leader, over Clark’s alleged “fix” of the Harmonized Sales Tax. Meaning that Independent MLAs Bob Simpson and Vicki Huntington… View Article
Christy’s HST “fix”: politics trumps good policy
May 26, 2011
This is no way to make tax policy. Wednesday’s proposed reforms to the HST provide yet more evidence that what we really need is a Fair Tax Commission –– a full public engagement exercise in which the entire tax regime is on the table, and people can deliberate on how we want to raise the… View Article
British Columbia Auditor finds costly failings in Province’s first hospital P3
May 23, 2011
A new report by British Columbia’s Auditor General has debunked nearly every benefit claimed so far for public private partnerships (P3s). The Auditor General’s report on a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA) project adds to earlier criticisms by his counterparts about failings in P3 hospital projects in Quebec and Ontario. The BC report, released on… View Article
Have we completely bought the idea that “There Is No Alternative”?
May 18, 2011
Once again, over the last few weeks Canadians have had energy costs on our minds. Prices at the pump rocketed up to nearly $1.50, while the price of a barrel of oil was actually going down. What can we possibly do? Industry officials blame unrest in the Middle East and floods on the Mississippi. Former… View Article
On the Forest Fire Front Line: One Ecologist’s Take on What it Will Take to Safeguard Communities
May 13, 2011
With one of the colder springs on record, many British Columbians quite naturally yearn for a good stretch of warm, dry weather. But for many people in the province, prolonged periods of hotter and drier weather are often far from welcome. That’s because when things get hot and dry they burn. And in many regions… View Article
Thousands more millionaires in Canada
May 10, 2011
In case you were worried, the Financial Post reports that “new wealth” will continue to be generated in Canada and be one of the developed countries to “have some of the biggest concentrations of millionaire households by 2020.” I’m feeling so relieved, aren’t you? A Deloitte LLP report predicts that 2.4 million households in Canada will… View Article
Open government a Cabinet secret declares BC Minister
May 7, 2011
I love reading Estimates debates in the legislature. It is a rare opportunity for Opposition critics to grill their assigned Cabinet Ministers at length. Sometimes the oddest things come out. On Wednesday the NDP Critic Doug Routley was questioning the Minister for Citizen Services and Open Government Stephanie Cadieux. It turns out that following up on… View Article
Lessons for Ottawa from Victoria, Lessons for Victoria from Ottawa
May 5, 2011
Many Canadians have expressed fear about what our new national government, a majority elected by a 39% minority, will do now that it has four years of real power. For those concerned Canadians, British Columbia offers a lesson. BC’s government has discovered from an independent study that their HST is not revenue neutral. It will… View Article
BQ demise a big loss
May 3, 2011
We have a lost a lot with the demise of the Bloc Quebecoise as a significant presence in Parliament. Social policy in Quebec has been more progressive than elsewhere in Canada for a long time. This is particularly important for policy related to women’s rights, including labour and social policy that allow women’s full participation… View Article
Harper’s Reckless Economics
May 1, 2011
Throughout the election campaign Stephen Harper claimed the political high ground on the management of the economy. The surprise is that the opposition has pretty much let him get away with this. During the English Language debate the first question focused on $6 billion tax cuts to corporations. Harper said there were no tax cuts… View Article
Day of Mourning for killed and injured workers
Apr 25, 2011
It’s worth remembering that April 28th is the day of mourning for workers who were injured or who have lost their lives as a result of work-related incidents or occupational diseases. Last year 143 BC workers lost their lives. That’s up from 121 people in 2009 at the height of the recession. On average, more… View Article
If Our Forests Count Then It’s Time to Count
Apr 22, 2011
Judging by the comments published in response to an opinion piece that Anthony Britneff and I co-wrote and that The Province newspaper published this week, there is growing concern within the ranks of the provincial Forest Service and in the professional forestry community over the current state of health of our publicly owned forests. Inventories… View Article
A billion dollars of bogus carbon credits
Apr 19, 2011
A story in today’s Vancouver Sun is disturbing, arguing that BC could make $1 billion from selling carbon offsets once the Western Climate Initiative gets underway. The projects are mostly in forest management and conservation, meaning less cutting and more sequestration of carbon in the forests themselves. The conservation part is undoubtedly a good thing… View Article
Transportation Transformation
Apr 19, 2011
Just in time for Earth Day, we have a new release from the Climate Justice Project, Transportation Transformation: Building Complete Communities and a Zero-Emission Transportation System in BC. The report is perhaps the most visionary of our CJP publications to date (and has lots of great graphics to illustrate that vision), a necessity given that… View Article
From The Missing Issues File: Climate Change
Apr 14, 2011
Did I miss something, or did the two-hour English election debate go by with only one passing reference to climate change, the most urgent issue of our time? There seems to be an inverse relationship at play between the severity of the crisis and its place on the political radar. The issue is receiving much… View Article
Can cooperatives humanize the economy?
Apr 13, 2011
Book Review of Humanizing the Economy: Cooperatives in the Age of Capital, by John Restakis, New Society Publishers, 2010. The economy is about business, right? Sure, we have a dynamic mixed economy, and most people support decent social programs and government intervention to protect the environment or to improve living conditions for the poorest. In… View Article
Environmental Violence
Apr 11, 2011
Time magazine recently reported that particulates in the air from “industry, traffic and domestic heating, cause 4,300 premature deaths in London each year”. That works out to about 12 people dying every single day, in just one city. The British government does not seem worried about this horrific toll. To put their response in perspective,… View Article