Transparency & accountability

A Dam Troublesome Exception: Progress Energy’s dams should not be exempted from environmental review

Oct 2, 2017
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I sent the following letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company also failed to obtain other… View Article

Firehose of corporate cash or financing our democracy together? A no-brainer

Sep 25, 2017
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A long-overdue and badly-needed overhaul of BC’s election finance rules was introduced by the provincial government last week. Media headlines mostly focused on the decision to include public funding for political parties, questioning whether it is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and whether the governing NDP has reversed itself on this issue. But this… View Article

BC’s last Climate “Leadership” Plan was written in big oil’s boardroom (literally)

Sep 18, 2017
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Newly uncovered documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal the cozy relationship between the fossil fuel industry and the last BC government went even further than suspected — all the way to inviting industry to directly craft the province’s climate “leadership” plan. Let’s rewind for a second: back in the spring of 2015, then-premier… View Article

The enormous cost of public-private partnerships

Aug 3, 2017
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Three recent BC public private partnership (P3) hospitals developed in co-operation with the province’s Partnerships BC (PBC) will cost the public $260 million more than traditionally delivered projects, according to figures released in July in response to a Freedom of Information request.1 The three projects were the BC Children’s and BC Women’s Redevelopment Project Phase… View Article

To protect her legacy, Premier Clark should put a moratorium on the destruction of documents

Jun 1, 2017
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British Columbia is in interesting times politically and that makes transparency around government decisions more important than ever. It is both a medium-term issue and a critical short-term issue. Controversies around access to government information dogged the government in recent years. The “triple delete” scandal saw a government functionary fined $2,500 for making false statements… View Article

A Dam Big Problem: Regulatory breakdown as fracking companies in BC’s northeast build dozens of unauthorized dams

May 3, 2017
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A subsidiary of Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned petro giant courted by the BC government, has built at least 16 unauthorized dams in northern BC to trap hundreds of millions of gallons of water used in its controversial fracking operations. The 16 dams are among “dozens” that have been built by Petronas and other companies without… View Article

Manitoba opens door to public sector secrecy as Ottawa calls for increase in P3 projects

Mar 22, 2017
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Wednesday’s federal Budget reaffirms the Canadian Government’s commitment to its promised “Canada Infrastructure Bank.” This opens the door to having corporations deliver public infrastructure through public private partnerships which is a controversial move. In the words of one writer: In other words, public-private partnerships are sort of like credit cards: You get the shiny thing… View Article