Archive
Transit referendum: if no vote wins, what is Plan B?
Mar 20, 2015
I got my plebiscite ballot today and of course voted yes. Whatever you think of TransLink management, its governance, the rough and largely undefined edges of the mayor’s plan, and the politically expedient but otherwise not particularly appropriate sales tax source of revenues, the simple fact remains that I and most residents of Greater Vancouver… View Article
Seniors have major stake in transit referendum: Access to transportation a key factor for health, wellbeing
Mar 17, 2015
By Shannon Daub, Co-Director of the CCPA-BC’s Seniors Project, and Sandra (Sandy) James LEED AP MCIP CCPI, Director, Walk Metro Vancouver Society Between now and May, residents of Metro Vancouver will receive a mail-in ballot asking if they are in favour of a .5 percentage point increase on sales tax to fund transportation improvements in… View Article
BC minimum wage increase leaves workers in poverty
Mar 12, 2015
After close to three years of no change, the BC minimum wage was overdue for an increase. But the measly raise announced today falls far short of what is necessary. The 20c per hour increase, scheduled to come into effect on Sept 15, 2015, amounts to a raise of just under 2% over more than 3 years…. View Article
Don’t pit generations against each other in transit referendum
Mar 10, 2015
The Georgia Straight published a column yesterday by Charlie Smith claiming that “selfish old people” will vote “no” in the upcoming transit referendum, depriving younger generations of a decent quality of life and an opportunity to act on climate change. We were shocked by the inflammatory tone of the article, and the very inaccurate picture… View Article
Apples and oranges: Comparing BC and Ontario debt ratios
Mar 4, 2015
The February 18, 2015 edition of the Globe and Mail featured an article by the paper’s B.C. correspondent Gary Mason, which in part drew favourable attention to BC’s debt-to-GDP ratio in comparison with that of Ontario. On face value, B.C.’s reported debt-to-GDP ratio calculated from its most recent audited statements of 18.2% looks pretty good… View Article
Why we’re voting YES to new transit and transportation funding
Mar 2, 2015
By Seth Klein, Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova In the upcoming transit and transportation referendum, we think the benefits of a YES outcome outweigh the negatives for the following reasons: Referenda are a terrible way to make tax policy. But a referendum is nevertheless before Metro Vancouver residents, and we can’t afford to ignore it…. View Article
BC Budget 2015: Missed opportunity for climate change action
Feb 27, 2015
Global warming and the other ecological impacts of climate change threaten our health—our very survival. As the impacts of climate change unfold, society will face increasing economic costs. Even the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, which some have criticized as being unduly influenced by the Conservative government, estimates these costs, which include… View Article
BC Budget 2015 confirms it: we can afford the $10aDay Child Care Plan
Feb 26, 2015
Budget 2015 clearly shows that BC can afford to start implementing the $10aDay Child Care Plan now – and it can choose to do so without raising taxes, without cutting vital programs and services, and without going into deficit. A short and simple analysis, summarized below, provides one example of how investment in child care… View Article
The early and fatal undermining of TransLink
Feb 25, 2015
Pete McMartin wrote an excellent column in the Vancouver Sun documenting the many ways that the provincial government has undermined TransLink. The upcoming referendum isn’t the first but rather the culmination of a two decade, tragically effective, bipartisan effort to prevent TransLink from doing what it was originally set up to do and what the region… View Article
BC Budget 2015 snapshot: More revenue from MSP, tuition, but less money for public services
Feb 25, 2015
One way to measure a government’s commitment to public services is to see what percentage of the province’s wealth (GDP) the government spends on these services. According to government plans outlined in the Budget Documents: Health care spending will fall from 7.9% of GDP in 2012/13 to 7.5% in 2017/18. Education spending falls from 5.6%… View Article
Low-carbon urban infrastructure: a view from Vancouver
Feb 18, 2015
I have a new case study (full pdf; summary article from the publishers) out as part of the Economists for Equity and Environment‘s Future Economy Initiative. I look at the City of Vancouver’s Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU), a low-carbon district energy system that hits a sweet spot of clean energy, local control, and stable prices at competitive rates…. View Article
11 things you need to know about BC Budget 2015
Feb 17, 2015
1. Budget 2015 ends the claw-back on child support payments for single parents on welfare. This is estimated to put $13 million in the hands of some of the poorest British Columbians. It’s a good step forward, but it is very very small. $13 million is three hundredths of one percent of the provincial budget…. View Article
3 worrisome facts about BC’s job market on the eve of Budget 2015
Feb 16, 2015
2015 marks the sixth year of BC’s recovery from the recession. But it’s been a slow and largely jobless recovery in BC. 1. BC needs 93,000 more jobs to return to our pre-recession employment rate (the proportion of working age British Columbians who have jobs). Only 71.2% of working age British Columbians have jobs today…. View Article
Rethinking social protections in the age of contractors
Feb 14, 2015
The job market is changing rapidly. While most workers of our parents’ generation could have reasonably expected to spend their entire working careers in permanent full-time jobs with one or two employers, today many rely on contract work or freelancing, and even regular full-time employees change jobs frequently. There are pros and cons to this shift,… View Article
Ok, Let’s Talk.
Jan 29, 2015
Yesterday was Bell Let’s Talk Day 2015. You might have heard about it. According to Bell, a record 122,150,772 Bell Let’s Talk tweets, texts, calls, and shares on January 28, 2015 translated into a new donation of $6,107,538 to mental health initiatives. Let’s Talk is a multi-year campaign focused on four “action pillars” related to… View Article
Charity is not the right way to tackle poverty in British Columbia
Jan 28, 2015
The existence of poverty in British Columbia is a violation of human rights. There is not only a moral duty to eradicate poverty but also a legal obligation under international human rights law. Just before the holidays, December 10 was International Human Rights Day but we have little to celebrate here in BC. A human… View Article
Who gets paid more?
Jan 20, 2015
The Fraser Institute is really concerned that public sector employees might be making more than private sector employees. What is notable about the recent Fraser Institute report on public and private sector wages in British Columbia is that it does not seem particularly concerned with the reasons why there are variations in public and private… View Article
The case against a revenue-neutral carbon tax
Jan 15, 2015
I’m a fan of carbon taxes, but increasingly I see the term “revenue-neutral” attached to it. Where I live, in BC, we have perhaps the most prominent example of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and carbon tax advocates have come to promoting the BC model to other jurisdictions, such as Ontario, who are contemplating their own carbon tax…. View Article
Yes Mr. Harper It Is A Sociological Phenomenon
Jan 14, 2015
This piece originally appeared on Blogging for Equality. Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights Issues Breakthrough Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls The Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights has provided a direct answer to Prime Minister Harper: Yes, the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls are a ‘sociological phenomenon’. The Inter-American Human… View Article
Denying inequality is a problem for Canada won’t make it go away
Jan 8, 2015
Jock Finlayson’s article “Income inequality not a problem in Canada” misses the point. Just because inequality in Canada is somewhat lower than in the U.S. (the Western world’s most unequal country) doesn’t mean we don’t have a serious problem. The small decline in the share of income going to the top one per cent Finlayson… View Article