Month: November 2017

Canadian politicians have a long-standing tradition of proclaiming targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then failing to meet them. After a wake-up call in the form of a record fire season this past summer, what are the prospects for climate leadership from BC’s new government? First, a look back November 29 marked ten years since… View Article

Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis is full of jaw-dropping anecdotes about home prices and rents. But with almost a million households in Metro Vancouver, there are both winners and losers from the boom. A recent Statistics Canada release on housing affordability from the 2016 Census allows us to put some numbers to the crisis. Almost two-thirds… View Article

In April 2007, the BC government’s energy policy was rapidly transforming the province’s electricity system from publicly owned to one operated in the interests of private energy developers and multinational energy corporations. Sticker Shock was written to expose the enormous costs of the BC government’s private power agenda. It documented the fact that the BC… View Article

CCPA-BC Director Seth Klein is a signatory to this open letter to the BC government calling for a provincial opioid action plan. The letter was coordinated by the Public Health Association of BC, a voluntary, non-profit, non-government, member-driven organization that provides leadership to promote health. Since April, 2016 when the epidemic of opioid overdose deaths… View Article

In Metro Vancouver, as the region’s population has grown so has its congestion problems. Whether enduring a long wait to cross a bridge or get on a bus, everyone can relate to the additional time and stress caused by a transportation system under strain. Metro Vancouver is, for all intents and purposes, at “peak car”:… View Article

In 2006, I wrote the report, “Community Based Mental Health in BC: Changes to Income, Employment and Housing Supports” to explain policy changes that had occurred with a new government and to look at their impact on community-based mental health services. In 2001 the Liberals came into power in BC after ten years of an… View Article

Over the past decade and a half, BC’s tax system has become remarkably unfair. CCPA analysis shows that personal tax changes between 2000 and 2016—including income, sales, property, carbon and Medical Services Plan (MSP) taxes—overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest British Columbians. Households with income over $400,000—the richest 1 per cent—received a tax cut of $39,000 per… View Article

Provincial health spending as a share of our economy has been relatively steady in recent years, and is projected to fall from 7.8 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 7.4 per cent in 2019 according to the government’s September budget update. If, however, we want to tackle the opioid crisis, enhance seniors care, reduce… View Article

The provincial government has ordered Progress Energy to drain virtually all of the water trapped behind two massive dams that the company built in violation of key provincial regulations. The company was told on October 31 to drain all but 10% of the water stored behind its Town and Lily dams near the Alaska Highway… View Article

The BC government’s September budget update included significant new funding for K-12 education as expected in light of last year’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling. This was vital after years of chronic underfunding by the previous government. The new funding to restore class size and composition provisions illegally stripped from teachers’ contracts means that thousands… View Article