Tag Archive: poverty

Your Brain on Capitalism

Sep 7, 2010
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At least as far back as Sokrates, people have speculated on the relationship between psychology and politics. In the 20th century, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm and members of the Frankfurt School (such as Herbert Marcuse) pioneered discussion about how individual dispositions affect one’s social and political ideologies. On the other hand, social psychologists like Stanley… View Article

Poverty reduction: What other provinces are doing

Jun 8, 2010
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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

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

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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

Job creation alone will not solve BC’s poverty problem

Apr 29, 2010
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Whenever he’s confronted with questions about BC’s record high child poverty rates or by the growing income inequality in the province, our Premier maintains that the best social policy is a job. In fact, reducing the costs of doing business in BC seems to be this government’s chief economic strategy. Consider the HST, for example,… View Article

Living Wage: Congratulations to New Westminster

Apr 27, 2010
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Some great news to share on the living wage front. Last night (April 26), New Westminster City Council voted unanimously to adopt the first municipal Living Wage policy in Canada. They have used the broad definition of the family living wage, developed two years ago by CCPA, First Call and the Victoria Community Council (meaning,… View Article

Vancouver’s poverty rate leads country

Apr 5, 2010
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Thanks to Jean Swanson for drawing to my attention a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities called Mending Canada’s frayed social safety net: The role of municipal governments. The report looks at key social indicators in 24 Canadian municipalities, and contains some stark findings for Vancouver. Jean summarizes these in a blog post… View Article

Tax cuts don’t make up for BC’s low minimum wages

Apr 4, 2010
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Responding to news of Ontario’s latest minimum wage increase (to $10.25 per hour), BC’s labour minister Murray Coell held firm on his government’s commitment to leave BC’s $8 minimum wage unchanged. The Minister seems convinced that the tax cuts over the last decade were so beneficial to low wage workers in the province, that they… View Article

Child Poverty in BC — taking a look back

Jan 15, 2010
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In response to the provincial government’s efforts to explain away child poverty stats, First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition (which produces the annual BC child poverty report card) has started to produce monthly fact sheets to set the record straight. The first of these short reports was posted to their website this week…. View Article

New Brunswick Plans for a $10 Minimum Wage

Jan 6, 2010
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On January 5, New Brunswick’s provincial government announced plans to increase their minimum wage from the current $8.25 per hour to $10 over the next two years. The move has gotten surprisingly little coverage in the mainstream media out West so far, but I urge you to check out this excellent article on the Times… View Article