Employment & labour

Living wage increases highlight urgent need to expand government efforts on housing affordability

Nov 17, 2022
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Affordability has long been a concern for residents of Metro Vancouver—a region notorious for stratospheric housing costs—but with inflation shooting up to a 40-year high this year, the cost of living has become a much more pressing worry for many. Sticker shock at ever-rising grocery prices is now an all-too-familiar experience, but as prices soar… View Article

Shortchanging public sector workers is bad for BC

Jun 27, 2022
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Public sector workers are in the midst of difficult contract negotiations with the BC government. The workers are reportedly asking for wages to keep up with inflation, but the government hasn’t been willing to come to the table with an offer that reflects the rising cost of living. Public sector workers who have been keeping… View Article

A win for BC workers: single-step union certification

May 4, 2022
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The BC government recently introduced legislation that allows a majority of workers in a workplace to organize a union a little more easily, making it harder for employers to intimidate and interfere in organizing drives. That’s good news both for working people and for the quality of our democracy. Single-step certification simply means that if… View Article

Health care spending falls short in 2022 federal budget

Apr 26, 2022
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Marjorie Cohen will deliver the CCPA–BC’s 2022 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture on September 14, 2022 at 4:00pm PT. This free lecture will be held on zoom, you can register online here. A consistent theme in the media, when writing about health care in Canada, is to use disparaging adjectives, such as ‘dilapidated,’ ‘ramshackled,’ ‘exhausted.’ They… View Article

Employment rights justice denied to thousands of BC Workers

Apr 14, 2022
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For decades, the BC Employment Standards Branch has not effectively enforced the Employment Standards Act, meaning thousands of workers are denied their legal rights, a new report that we co-wrote with the BC Employment Standards Coalition shows. Complaints take between 18 months to three years to resolve; the Branch doesn’t proactively investigate employers, industries and… View Article

Why increasing government spending makes economic sense

Feb 14, 2022
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Author’s note: The latest BC government throne speech promised “to help solve big challenges – like inequality and climate change – with growth that is inclusive and sustainable.” CCPA-BC will closely analyze the upcoming BC Budget to determine whether the government’s intention is backed by the increased levels of public investment needed to meet the… View Article

BC should look to zero waste solutions to reduce GHG emissions and create jobs

Jan 24, 2022
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British Columbia is ahead of most North American jurisdictions in implementing composting and recycling programs. Yet, we are systemically burdened by endless amounts of packaging, especially the mass proliferation of plastic, which is an environmental tragedy of our times. BC shares the core problem with other jurisdictions: a culture of consumption and an extraction-oriented economic… View Article

COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for a living wage

Jan 11, 2022
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With the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, news stories sounding the alarm over worker shortages are once again on the rise. And, like previous waves, these news stories are focused almost exclusively on workers in low-wage, precarious jobs. These jobs service large parts of the Canadian economy that are now being recognized as… View Article

The great tree robbery

Dec 2, 2021
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As more old-growth trees topple and forest industry jobs plummet, an obscure government subsidy scheme fuels the collapse For more than 15 years, the BC government has rewarded logging companies with millions of additional old-growth trees to chop down thanks to an obscure “credit” program that allows companies to log bonus trees that don’t count… View Article