Good news from the BC government – with a couple of caveats

Jul 10, 2010
The BC government’s announcement July 9th that it had signed a deal on generic drugs with the province’s drug stores is good news.  As discussed in an earlier blog, British Columbians have been paying far more than consumers in other jurisdictions for generic drugs.  Alberta, Quebec and Ontario had already taken steps to correct this… View Article

Will the HST boost job growth and when?

Jul 6, 2010
As BC and Ontario have now started paying the HST at the till, many people may be wondering when exactly can we expect to see those jobs postings opening up. This is a good question. According to analysis commissioned by the BC government from economist Jack Mintz, titled British Columbia’s Harmonized Sales Tax: A Giant… View Article

BC’s carbon tax turns two

Jul 5, 2010
With all of the attention focused on the HST implementation on July 1, most people seemed to miss the next increment of that other much-hated tax, BC’s carbon tax. As of July 1, the carbon tax is now $20 per tonne of CO2, or about 4.6 cents on a litre of gasoline. And like any… View Article

On the economic impacts of the HST

Jul 5, 2010
My previous HST post focused on the impact of the tax on households and I concluded that it’s likely that it will cost families and that some modest income families will be hurt by the tax. Is this sufficient reason to campaign for the tax to be repealed? Not necessarily. Public policy is about choices… View Article

British Medical Journal links social spending cuts to increased mortality

Jun 29, 2010
An article and an editorial in this week’s British Medical Journal outline the very high cost of cutting social programs. The article’s authors look at social spending in the OECD and find changes in social spending directly related to changes in mortality.  Even more, they find the impact of social spending on health to be… View Article

The HST and BC family budgets

Jun 24, 2010
That the HST will take a bite out of family budgets is clear to everyone. The main question right now is just how big of a bite. Two studies released earlier this week asked this exact question but came to very different conclusions. On Monday, the Fraser Institute released a paper arguing that lower and… View Article

If the Taxpayers Federation gets its way, we can be just like California

Jun 21, 2010
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Maureen Bader is inciting a tax revolt for municipal taxpayers.  If she gets her way, maybe we can be just like California. Last Friday the Globe and Mail published an article in their business section outlining how Los Angeles area apartment owners in the mid 1970s financed a campaign against municipal… View Article

New BC generic drug plan could save millions – but maybe not for everybody

Jun 18, 2010
Very, very quietly, the BC provincial government is negotiating new arrangements for the purchase of generic drugs that could save the province hundreds of millions of dollars.  Done right, all BC taxpayers will win as more money becomes available for other health services.  Done wrong, much of the savings for the province’s PharmaCare program will… View Article

A new era for measuring poverty in Canada

Jun 18, 2010
Last Thursday’s Statistics Canada release of individual and household income data for 2008 marks a new era in the study of poverty in Canada. Instead of reporting only on the Low Income Cut Offs (LICO), as they used to, Statistics Canada reported on three of the most common measures of low income in the same… View Article

Quebec Auditor General slams P3s in hospital project

Jun 11, 2010
Quebec’s Auditor General has issued yet one more report slamming the use of public private partnerships (P3s).  With P3s, private corporations finance and operate public facilities and services.  The money they invest is more costly than money borrowed publicly.  It is paid back to them, along with profits for the corporation, by governments over multi-decade contracts…. View Article

Poverty reduction: What other provinces are doing

Jun 8, 2010
BC has much to learn from other provinces when it comes to poverty reduction. Six provinces now have poverty reduction plans, although most are still fairly new, and therefore we don’t yet have data to tell us what kind of success they are meeting with, the exceptions being Quebec and Newfoundland. What their plans and… View Article

Off the Highway by Mette Bach: politics and memoir

Jun 8, 2010
Another suggestion for summer reading: brand new from local publisher New Star Books: Off the Highway by Mette Bach, a short (about 80 pages) memoir of her childhood and adolescence in North Delta. Bach weaves together personal recollections, history and social commentary to create a quirky, funny, depressing picture of a little-known Vancouver suburb. Regular… View Article

Some issues arising from the special advisor’s report on the Vancouver School Board

Jun 6, 2010
The special advisor appointed by the provincial government to look at the finances of the Vancouver School Board reported on Friday and a number of issues arise from the report.  Before discussing these, however, people should be aware that in my day job I am a researcher for the Canadian Union of Public Employees which… View Article

‘Green’ Summer Reading

Jun 3, 2010
As I was wandering through the airport this spring I succumbed to my one true addiction: books.  Yes, I know that a good environmentalist uses the local library, but I’m working on it….. Anyway, as always, I try to pick up something that I’ve read a review on or something that just jumps out at… View Article

View from the Top: Income Inequality in BC

Jun 2, 2010
A fascinating, and shocking, literature on the incomes at the very top of the distribution has emerged in recent years. Typically, Statistics Canada only reports income distributions for quintiles, or 20% groupings, and occasionally deciles, or 10% groupings. But new research based on tax filing has shown that the real action has been at the… View Article

Legislative review of FOI Act narrow and timid

Jun 1, 2010
A legislative committee reviewing BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act reported on May 31st and the results were disappointing.  They certainly did not live up to the previous legislative review in 2004.  Back then government backbenchers on the Committee made recommendations leaders of the government didn’t like.  The 2004 Committee made recommendations… View Article

Child poverty: How does BC stack up against those provinces with a plan?

May 29, 2010
A week ago, I appeared before the BC Legislature’s Standing Committee on Children and Youth. The committee, to its credit, had decided to spend a day hearing witnesses on the subject of child poverty, and what BC could do to make a difference. Among the points I raised with the committee: too often this issue… View Article

Early indicators of how the recession has hit BC’s poor

May 29, 2010
Just wanted to draw readers’ attention to a great op-ed piece in The Province newspaper this past Thursday: “Recession slammed BC’s poor; and it’s not over,” by Chandra Pasma. Chandra is a policy analyst with Citizens for Public Justice (a faith-based social justice group), and author of a recent report entitled Bearing the Brunt: How… View Article

Buying off industry

May 27, 2010
At first glance, the response of the forest sector and other large energy users to the province’s Clean Energy Act was surprising. Here is an Act that will force BC Hydro to waste literally billions of dollars to create an artificial demand for private power.  It will without question drive up BC Hydro’s rates far more… View Article

Privacy, Facebook and a New Information and Privacy Commissioner

May 24, 2010
Sometimes personal and policy issues collide or at least slide in side-by-side.  That happened for me when the BC Legislature appointed Elizabeth Denham as the province’s new Information and Privacy Commissioner on May 6th.  Denham’s biography shows she has a strong background in privacy issues.  From 2003 to 2007 she worked on private sector privacy… View Article