First Nations & Indigenous

BC First Nation logs almost all of its treaty lands, leaving behind lots of stumps and questions

Jul 10, 2023

In just three years, much of the McLeod Lake Indian Band’s treaty lands were stripped of their bountiful and exceedingly valuable trees in a surge of logging that included one massive clear-cut that is almost 3,000 hectares in size, or 7.5 times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The extensive logging by the band of… View Article

Two workers painting an exterior wall of a building, hanging with harnesses.

New survey data shines light on the extent and impacts of precarious employment in BC

Apr 13, 2023

By Iglika Ivanova and Kendra Strauss

The rise of the “gig economy” and on-demand work through online platforms like Uber and Skip the Dishes has ignited public debate about precarious work and what makes a “good job.” We all know that precarious work existed long before Uber and is not limited to the gig economy. But government efforts to develop an… View Article

Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit

Mar 23, 2023

By J David Hughes

In 2007, then-BC premier Gordon Campbell passed the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act” committing BC to a 33 per cent reduction in emissions from 2007 levels by 2020. Despite premier Campbell’s good intentions, emissions in 2020 were down just 1.6 per cent. In 2016, in lieu of increasing the carbon tax implemented in Campbell’s greenhouse… View Article

Houston Falling: Super-sized mills lead to super-sized problems for BC forests and workers

Mar 2, 2023

By Ben Parfitt

When the world’s biggest sawmill opened its doors, then-premier Gordon Campbell enthused that it could shoot out enough lumber to build all of British Columbia’s new annual housing stock, which was then averaging 26,000 units per year. After the ribbon was cut and the first logs passed through its computerized scanners and whirring sawblades on… View Article

Does the global “loss and damages” fund negotiated at COP27 offer lessons for BC?

Feb 23, 2023

By Lisa Akinyi May

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) ended last November with an historic agreement to establish a “loss and damages” fund to address the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable nations. Given the disasters BC has faced over the last couple of years, is this a model the province could draw on to… View Article

Greenlighting fracking while protecting treaty rights?

Feb 13, 2023

By Ben Parfitt

Agreement with BC aside, 1000s of gas wells await Blueberry River First Nations When the Blueberry River First Nations took the provincial government to court in March 2015, arguing that cumulative industrial developments had robbed them of their ability to hunt and fish, oil and gas companies could see trouble lay ahead. So what did… View Article

Reconciliation in action?

Jul 13, 2022

By Ben Parfitt

Far from it, says chief of holdout First Nation over deal with province on Site C In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was tasked with informing all Canadians about what happened to Indigenous Peoples in residential schools, defined the word reconciliation as a process of “establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between… View Article

The great tree robbery

Dec 2, 2021

By Ben Parfitt

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

Old-growth deferrals and the elephant in the room: we’re out of trees to cut thanks to failed provincial policies

Nov 12, 2021

By Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Arnold Bercov, Ben Parfitt and Torrance Coste

No one should be surprised that the British Columbia government’s decision to potentially defer logging in 26,000 square kilometres of old-growth forest angered many and pleased few. First Nation leaders were highly critical of the incredibly short, 30-day turnaround that the government imposed on them to respond to the deferral proposals, the paltry funding provided… View Article

11 steps toward a more just society for Budgets ‘22 and beyond

Aug 25, 2021

By David Green, Lindsay Tedds, Rhys Kesselman and Daniel Perrin

As a fourth wave of COVID-19 ramps up, the impact of the pandemic on the economy, policymaking and budgets has not gone away. More broadly, government responses to the pandemic at both the national and provincial levels have generally been seen as a success. Much like in WWII, this appears to have led to a… View Article

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A progressive take on BC issues

A progressive take on BC issues

First Nations & Indigenous

BC First Nation logs almost all of its treaty lands, leaving behind lots of stumps and questions

New survey data shines light on the extent and impacts of precarious employment in BC

Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit

Houston Falling: Super-sized mills lead to super-sized problems for BC forests and workers

Does the global “loss and damages” fund negotiated at COP27 offer lessons for BC?

Greenlighting fracking while protecting treaty rights?

Reconciliation in action?

The great tree robbery

Old-growth deferrals and the elephant in the room: we’re out of trees to cut thanks to failed provincial policies

11 steps toward a more just society for Budgets ‘22 and beyond