Archive
Our Hopes and Dreams for Public Education
Jan 11, 2024
We know there are significant pressures facing our valued public education system—overcrowding, chronic underfunding, a growing teacher shortage and inadequate support for students with diverse learning needs to name just a few. These cracks in our school system command our immediate attention and require our concerted advocacy. When we’re focused on the problems and pressing… View Article
Beyond “Happy Holidays!”: it’s time to support Canada’s increasing religious diversity
Dec 22, 2023
Canada’s religious demographics have changed in the last 20 years. This is not being reflected in all facets of the structural fabric of society, particularly in the context of work and holidays…. View Article
Government must do more than shuffle chairs to solve BC’s water woes
Dec 20, 2023
British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests was always a poor choice to manage the province’s water resources—and it showed. So it was fitting in October that the government decided after years of being urged to do so to transfer that power to the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. But shunting public servants between ministries… View Article
Time for change: A farewell message from CCPA-BC Director Shannon Daub
Dec 15, 2023
Dear friends, It is with mixed feelings that I share my decision with you to move on from the CCPA. Mixed because I am ready for a change in my career, but that doesn’t spare me the heartache of saying goodbye to an organization I’ve had the honour of helping to build over the past… View Article
Provincial zoning reform essential to reduce housing exclusion and displacement
Dec 14, 2023
Sky-high rents, ultra-low vacancy rates and fierce competition for scarce homes have become the grim but familiar picture of housing in BC, driving unaffordability, exclusion and displacement. The BC government has made major housing policy announcements in recent weeks and a key focus has been tackling chronic municipal roadblocks to new housing. For decades, exclusionary… View Article
New protections for BC platform workers entrench racism
Dec 13, 2023
In November 2023, the BC Ministry of Labour announced new employment standards that claim to “bring fairness” to the estimated 40,000 ride-hail and food-delivery workers in BC. The move comes after a year of public engagement with platform workers, platform companies and labour experts, which brought to the fore the precarious working conditions of platform… View Article
Growing toll of COVID-19 on hospitals & population health should concern us
Dec 5, 2023
New data from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) paint a troubling picture of the growing toll of COVID-19 on population health and provincial health systems. These findings come as public health authorities and governments have rolled back most measures that reduce SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) transmission, even as… View Article
Time to end information hide-and-seek games: Public deserves more prompt government disclosure of basic data
Nov 16, 2023
No one should be told to file a Freedom of Information request simply to learn who works for them. Government must give members of the public access to up-to-date and useful information on who is there to serve them and quit obfuscating and abusing access to information laws, Ben Parfitt writes…. View Article
Affordability crisis will persist until we get a handle on runaway housing costs
Nov 15, 2023
Although inflation has come down from the historic highs recorded in 2022, the cost of living in Metro Vancouver continues to increase rapidly. It now takes an hourly wage of $25.68 in Metro Vancouver for two parents each working full-time to support a family of four. This is the 2023 living wage for Metro Vancouver,… View Article
Raising the bar: Our recommendations for equitable gig work in BC
Nov 2, 2023
Platform companies like Uber, Lyft and Skip the Dishes derive profits at the expense of taxpayers’ contributions and workers’ health and safety.
The BC government has a unique opportunity to set high standards for sustainable, responsible platform work and we are pleased to support the government’s deliberations on this issue. Read our 12 recommendations. … View Article
Reality check: BC government can afford to make more investments in urgent social and environmental priorities
Oct 31, 2023
Provincial government spending as a share of GDP still hasn’t recovered after decades-old social spending cuts under the previous government despite growing need for public investment…. View Article
2023 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture with Economist Ha-Joon Chang
Oct 24, 2023
(video) Economist Ha-Joon Chan delivers the 2023 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture, co-hosted by the CCPA-BC and the UBC Vancouver School of Economics…. View Article
What would it take to meet Canada’s 2030 climate targets?
Oct 5, 2023
Adapted from the CCPA’s fall 2023 submission to Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body by Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood & Marc Lee When Canada first signed the Paris Agreement way back in 2015, the commitment to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 seemed far away. So far away, in fact, that in… View Article
Fires and farmworkers: Climate justice means improving protections for migrant farmworkers
Sep 15, 2023
The impacts of the climate crisis are socially and geographically uneven: the wealthiest regions contribute disproportionately to the destruction of the planet while the poorest regions suffer the heaviest consequences. In this context, migrant farmworkers find themselves doubly displaced, facing droughts and inundations in their home countries, then heatwaves, fires and floods where they come… View Article
Failure to act means failing dikes
Sep 13, 2023
Province must take responsibility for flood protection infrastructure Provincial and municipal officials were warned repeatedly that the dikes in one of the cities hit hardest by the floods that paralyzed southern British Columbia in 2021 were structurally unsound and could fail should water levels in local rivers rise quickly. For years preceding the disaster,… View Article
Here’s how BC should protect app-based workers
Sep 6, 2023
The rise of the “gig economy” and on-demand work through digital platforms like Uber and Skip the Dishes has ignited the public debate about precarious work. Despite their high-tech image, digital platform firms employ practices that are familiar from centuries of insecure work, including compensating workers on a per-task basis, offering no guarantee of continuing… View Article
Taxing land wealth for the public good: provincial policy options
Aug 30, 2023
Property wealth has become a massive source of inequality in BC as home prices and rents have risen dramatically amid a severe housing crisis and shortage. A consequence of high prices has been an explosion of residential real estate wealth now totaling over $2.1 trillion in the province, a stock of wealth that remains only… View Article
The federal government’s potential leap towards housing affordability
Aug 24, 2023
This is an excerpt from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual Alternative Federal Budget chapter on housing. It outlines what an ambitious federal government could achieve on housing affordability in its 2024 budget. For a growing number of Canadians, the housing market is broken. In 2021, an estimated 1.5 million Canadian households lived in… View Article
Housing lessons from Singapore
Aug 10, 2023
Could Singapore, a city-state of 5.5 million across the ocean in Asia, hold the key to BC’s housing future? On a recent trade mission to Asia, Premier Eby was introduced to Singapore and its successes in providing affordable housing for its citizens. With a promised BC Builds program in development, Singapore shows what a more… View Article
The Energy Action Framework and BC’s carbon crossroads revisited
Jul 25, 2023
Since first starting down the pathway of climate action in 2007, the BC government has both developed policies to reduce carbon emissions domestically while simultaneously promoting a growing oil and gas export industry. These contradictions are evident in the March 2023 announcement of a new Energy Action Framework, which tries to balance the interests of… View Article