Archive
13 years on, BC Finance Ministry finds big problems with its public private partnership program
Jan 7, 2015
The BC Finance Ministry has produced a report much more critical of Partnerships BC and its activities around public private partnerships (P3s) than might have been expected by a province so committed to the practice. It raises issues of conflict of interest, dubious practices and questionable assumptions in the multi- billion dollar program. The story… View Article
Ontario Auditor breaks new ground with review of public private partnerships methodology: BC Auditor says maybe, sometime
Jan 5, 2015
Last month Ontario’s Auditor General issued her annual report. One of her targets was Ontario’s use of public private partnerships to build public infrastructure. As the Toronto Star put it, “Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk has taken a wrecking ball to the (Ontario) Liberals’ use of private money to bankroll new hospitals and transit…” Lysyk’s report… View Article
Site C
Dec 18, 2014
I was a bit surprised by Minister Bennett’s statement that I was 100% wrong when I suggested in a CBC radio interview that BC Hydro didn’t need to start on Site C right away. He emphatically disputed the suggestion that the decision and start of construction on Site C could be deferred three to five… View Article
Latest poverty stats show BC still has one of the highest poverty rates in Canada
Dec 15, 2014
The latest poverty statistics were released by Statistics Canada last Wednesday, and the data once again shows that British Columbia has one of the highest poverty rates in Canada. Using the Low Income Cut-Off – After Tax (LICO-AT) as the poverty line, 1 in 10 British Columbians are living in poverty. That’s 469,000 people struggling… View Article
Now is exactly the right time to regulate oil and gas
Dec 11, 2014
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Harper declared that, given oil prices plummeting to $60-70 a barrel, now would be a “crazy” time to introduce regulations on the oil and gas sector. This comes after promising nine years ago that the federal government would bring in new GHG regulations on the oil and gas sector (but… View Article
Child care is a human right
Dec 11, 2014
By Lynell and Melanie Anderson Our understanding of rights evolves along with society, yet the required and corresponding evolution in government policy in BC is stagnant. Re-establishing the Human Rights Commission, as recommended in a new report, could change this reality. We’re passionate about women’s and children’s rights, and concerned about the rights of mothers… View Article
BC must provide education to foster discrimination-free workplaces and services
Dec 10, 2014
Today, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Poverty and Human Rights Centre released a report on the need for a human rights commission in British Columbia. Yes. You read that right. British Columbia has no human rights commission. It is the only province in Canada without a publicly-funded independent agency that works to… View Article
The BC Human Rights Commission and Mental Health
Dec 10, 2014
In BC the human rights of people experiencing mental illness are routinely violated through the use of Section 28 under the BC Mental Health Act which is implemented when a person is thought to be a danger to themselves or others. A recent Globe and Mail article indicated that these apprehensions in BC (frequently initiated… View Article
BC needs a Human Rights Commission – now
Dec 10, 2014
Human rights are everyone’s business. The social climate we live in affects us all. When people are subjected to prejudice and discrimination because they are aboriginal or because of their gender or because of their sexual orientation or for some other reason, it creates a society that is more ugly, less safe and less human… View Article
BC’s workers need a human rights commission
Dec 10, 2014
Let me explain BC’s strategy for addressing discrimination. First, we ask someone to experience it. Then we ask that person to understand a complex area of law, investigate the facts and engage in a legal proceeding against their employer / landlord / service provider to enforce their rights. We ask many people to do this… View Article
Preventing discrimination before it occurs
Dec 10, 2014
The human rights process starts with the filing of a complaint of discrimination. In BC, the complaint is filed with the BC Human Rights Tribunal. Filing an effective complaint requires a good deal of time and effort. It can be hard to devote that time and effort if, for example, someone has been fired because… View Article
From discrimination against temporary foreign workers to sexual harassment, there’s no shortage of issues a human rights commission could tackle
Dec 10, 2014
British Columbia is the only province in Canada that does not have a Human Rights Commission. That makes us the weakest province when it comes to fostering human rights awareness and preventing discrimination. Currently BC only has a Human Rights Tribunal, which mediates and adjudicates complaints about discrimination after it has occurred. The Tribunal does… View Article
An effective poverty reduction plan is not just a piece of paper
Dec 2, 2014
Last week, First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition published its annual report card on child poverty in BC. As in past years, the results were sobering. Based on 2012 data, 20.6% of children, or one of five, live in poverty in BC. Nearly half of children living in single parent families live below… View Article
Refuting the tired claims of those opposed to minimum wage increases
Nov 28, 2014
In a Vancouver Sun opinion piece, Laura Jones of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business warns against minimum wage increases, calling it “Fa-la-la economics”. Perhaps it’s not the season to be so Grinch-like. Jones is right about one thing – the minimum wage is not a magic cure for our economic woes. No one has… View Article
It’s time to seriously tackle child poverty
Nov 24, 2014
One in five BC children lives in poverty. This is the sobering finding of the 2014 BC Child Poverty Report Card released on November 24th, the 25th anniversary of a unanimous all-party resolution in Canada’s House of Commons to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Child poverty is not just a big… View Article
How to create good jobs in BC
Nov 20, 2014
Five years have passed after the end of the Great Recession but both BC and Canada as a whole are very far away from a meaningful recovery in the labour market. Headline unemployment rates are not terrible (6.1% in BC and 6.8% in Canada) but fewer people are looking for work and part-time positions are… View Article
How the Pie is Sliced in BC
Nov 19, 2014
It’s an interesting finding, and perhaps the start of a good trend: the share of income going to Canada’s top 1% has declined (Statscan release here, Globe story here). One great thing Statscan has done in recent years is to make its data freely available, so I went to dig deeper on national, BC and… View Article
Child care unaffordability in Canada’s cities and what to do about it
Nov 10, 2014
A new report from the CCPA takes a closer look at child care fees in Canada’s biggest 22 cities and shows just how unaffordable child care has become everywhere outside of Quebec, the only province in Canada with universal subsidized child care. It’s hardly news that child care is expensive. Indeed, it is pricier than… View Article
Time for a Different Approach
Nov 8, 2014
It may be the heat here in Baja, and certainly the tequila could be taking its toll on clear, or at least correct thinking, but it seems to me that there is a better policy answer to Kinder Morgan than outright rejection of its pipeline and terminal expansion proposal, and a far better policy approach… View Article
New BC Auditor General report finds public private partnerships double the cost of borrowing
Oct 30, 2014
British Columbia’s new Auditor General, Carol Bellringer, published her annual report on government’s 2013-14 summary financial statements today and it contains some pretty interesting highlights. First of all, and for the first time, the AG has published a comparison of how much it costs the government to undertake projects on its own compared to using… View Article