An Interesting Spin

Feb 23, 2011
In its latest planning document, BC Hydro is forecasting a rate increase of 50% over the next five years. In fact, earlier BC Hydro submissions to the BC Utilities Commission revealed that rates are expected to increase at that pace for the next ten years, with rates forecast to more than double over that period. Not… View Article

Hats off to you, Mr. McKimm

Feb 17, 2011
In the mountain of material presented with the 2011 BC Budget (OK, much of it was an electronic mountain) there was one remarkable nugget of candor. Each ministry and agency is required to prepare a Service Plan that is published with the Budget.  These were initiated originally to provide more transparency in government work.  Over… View Article

Much ado about the provincial debt

Feb 16, 2011
If you read Vaughn Palmer’s online budget analysis in the Vancouver Sun, you’d be forgiven thinking that deficit hysteria is making a comeback in BC. The title of his online piece, Debt Hits Historic High, disappoints with its blatant sensationalism. Yes, it is technically true that in straight up current dollars debt hit a historic… View Article

BC Budget Commentary: where is the debate on new priorities?

Feb 16, 2011
For what was billed as a no-news budget, the 2011 February Budget is causing quite the splash in the media. In the absence of policy changes to discuss, the size of the provincial debt has emerged as the main issue of debate. Is it growing too fast? Is it going to become a problem when… View Article

Raising the minimum wage: not if but how much and how fast

Feb 10, 2011
While lone voices from the business sector still oppose a minimum wage increase (as in this article in The Province), the minimum wage debate in BC has now firmly shifted past the question of whether we should raise it or not. Virtually all leadership contenders for both the BC Liberals and the BC NDP have… View Article

Christy Clark’s “sustained development”

Feb 1, 2011
A news release from the Christy Clark camp puts its focus on energy policy in BC. While the press release reads as slickly as its candidate, let’s pause to deconstruct its key messages: “British Columbia is in an enviable energy position and we need to take full advantage of the resources we have in the… View Article

Free to grow or free to fail? Emerging science raises questions about health of our future forests

Jan 31, 2011
As tree-planting company representatives from across British Columbia gather in Kelowna for a conference this week, a lot of attention will focus on the question of just how significant a reforestation challenge we have on our hands in the province. Even those of us who know comparatively little about our forests understand that some astonishing… View Article

Over a decade, average BC wages fall below Canadian average

Jan 21, 2011
Every week the government publication BC Stats Infoline publishes a summary of usually pretty interesting things going on in British Columbia.  They have a nice archive of these publications and it can be helpful to go back and look at earlier publications. I looked at January 2001, the last year of the NDP government, and… View Article

The problems with the textbook analysis of minimum wages

Jan 20, 2011
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the sorry state of the BC minimum wage, stuck at $8 after nine years two months and still counting. Yes, it will likely increase very soon, now that almost all leadership candidates on both sides have expressed support for higher minimum wages, but one has got to ask… View Article

BC’s $8 minimum wage sets another record (low)

Jan 18, 2011
Did you know that BC, the home of the lowest minimum wage in Canada, just recently became the province with the longest minimum wage freeze in recent history? That is to say, since at least the mid-1960s when HRSDC data starts. BC’s minimum wage has now been stuck at $8 for nine years two months… View Article

Lib leadership contender ill informed or misleading on P3s

Jan 12, 2011
George Abbott has become the first of the BC Liberal leadership contenders to talk about the use of Public Private Partnerships (P3s) to deliver public facilities and services.  Unfortunately, Abbott’s comments suggest either that he doesn’t understand how these projects are being imposed or he is misleading the interviewer.  The government’s preferred P3 model is… View Article

ILO points to low union density and low minimum wages as causes of economic collapse

Jan 8, 2011
One more major international organization has published a report commenting on the damage done by growing inequality in society.  In December the International Labour Organization (ILO) published its second Global Wage Report.  The first such report examined trends in global wages in good times.  This one examines what happened in the economic collapse. Looking at… View Article

A Challenge to BC’s Leadership Candidates: Dare to Be Bold and to Tell Us the Truth

Jan 4, 2011
Some thoughts on what I’d love to hear in the current leadership contests: As a number of fundamental crises become more apparent (ecological and economic, not to mention the democratic deficit), the public is looking for bold ideas and bold leadership. Sadly, too many political strategists (as they will confess in private company) operate on… View Article

The IPP Lobby’s Top Ten

Jan 4, 2011
The Vancouver Sun’s Gordon Hamilton reports that the IPP lobby, BC Citizens for Green Energy, has released a Letterman-like top ten reasons for the development of more of their run-of-river and other ‘green’ power projects. Though not as funny as Letterman, the BCCGE’s top ten could bring out a laugh, except for the serious environmental and… View Article

Olympics – ‘Rousing Financial Success’?

Dec 19, 2010
Though not a true believer myself, I can think of a number of positive impacts from the 2010 Olympics. There was, without question, a community spirit seldom if ever seen in Vancouver. There was a renewed commitment to excellence in sport. However, one thing I couldn’t imagine anyone suggesting is that it was a “rousing… View Article

Missing the Vote: Democratic Reform in BC

Dec 16, 2010
I’ve long thought that we should lower the voting age to 16, so thanks to Mike deJong for raising it in the BC Liberal leadership campaign. I speak from some experience, as I voted shortly after I turned 17 in the Ontario provincial election. I was a frosh in residence at Western and no one… View Article

UNICEF shames Canada for inequality among children

Dec 16, 2010
In an earlier blog Shannon Daub reported on Mark Milke’s assertion that inequality was a lot of humbug.  UNICEF has published a report that shows that it is children who bear the burden of inequality and that children are not to blame for it.  When many of us think about UNICEF we think of an… View Article

How fossils fuel campaigns

Dec 15, 2010
Kevin Falcon’s tour of northeast BC, heart of the province’s oil and gas industry, and his dissin’ of BC’s (modest but important) climate measures was one of those moments when one realizes that things could actually get a lot worse in BC politics. Falcon cut his cabinet teeth as minister for deregulation, and is positioning… View Article

Opportunity will solve poverty, we can all get stinking rich if we work hard enough, and my pet unicorn is real

Dec 14, 2010
Mark Milke argues in today’s Vancouver Sun that massive and growing inequality is not a serious problem. In his mind, anyone concerned about the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us must simply suffer from a bad case of envy. It is unfortunate that the Sun chose to run this piece the… View Article

Something for the toolbox

Dec 12, 2010
 CCPA Research Associate Marvin Shaffer has written a book that deserves to be in the toolbox of people questioning decisions around government projects. The title of the book – Multiple Account Benefit-Cost Analysis: A practical Guide for the Systematic Evaluation of Project and Policy Alternatives – won’t have it jumping off the shelves in time for… View Article