Archive
Building equity: lessons for affordable housing in BC
Sep 18, 2024
No topic has dominated the headlines in recent years more than housing, or the growing lack of affordable options in Metro Vancouver and other cities in British Columbia. Scarce and expensive housing is eroding the province’s liveability and economy and large price rises have become a source of enormous wealth inequality. Our new report… View Article
Meet the CCPA–BC’s new Director! Kevin Millsip
Sep 16, 2024
Hello, My name is Kevin, and I’m the new/old guy at the BC Office. New, in that I joined this September as Director, and old in that I served on the BC Office steering committee for nearly 10 years, about 8 of those as Chair, and I’ve rented desk space from the BC Office over… View Article
Time to get on board with free public transit
Sep 12, 2024
The BC Green Party made the first big splash of the 2024 provincial election campaign with a major commitment to expand public transit, including a promise of “free public transit, province-wide” that has been widely criticized as being too costly. While shifting to free transit for everyone, everywhere could be fiscally and logistically challenging in… View Article
Exploitable and deportable by design: Why migrant workers’ housing is harmful to their health
Sep 11, 2024
Canada’s treatment of migrant workers is drawing international scrutiny after UN investigator Tomoya Obokata warned that its Temporary Foreign Worker Program “serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights.” Migrants, activists, and researchers, however, have known for… View Article
Addressing the racism of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program
Sep 2, 2024
There is renewed attention on Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in the wake of the recent damning report from the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery that calls the program “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Yet, the central critiques and recommendations made in the UN report are being ignored… View Article
Cedar LNG: Chronicles of a petro-state in the age of climate change
Jul 31, 2024
A final investment decision in June 2024 by Cedar LNG highlights the challenges and contradictions of BC’s climate and energy policies. For the BC government, this is the model industrial project: it creates jobs and development in the North, has a major Indigenous partner in the Haisla Nation and will meet the low-emissions target established… View Article
People in poverty need policy solutions, not a report card
Jul 29, 2024
Last week, the BC Government released the first update to the Poverty Reduction Strategy since the inaugural plan in 2019. As organizations long committed to ending poverty in BC, we hoped to see plans for how the government would achieve the targets that they set in the spring—reducing the overall poverty rate in the province… View Article
BC’s tax system has become fairer since 2017, richest 1% paying more
Jul 23, 2024
Since 2017, the vast majority of BC households are paying a smaller share of their income in provincial taxes, while the top 1% is paying more…. View Article
Announcing CCPA–BC’s 2024 Gala keynote speaker: Dr. Vandana Shiva
Jul 13, 2024
On Thursday, November 7th, the CCPA–BC Gala returns, and we couldn’t be more excited to announce this year’s keynote speaker: Dr. Vandana Shiva. She is a world-renowned environmental activist, intellectual and feminist who has worked in a wide range of fields inspiring change globally—particularly around issues of food, agriculture, bioethics and genetic engineering…. View Article
How BC’s oil and gas industry sidestepped carbon pricing
Jun 27, 2024
When BC first introduced a carbon tax in 2008 the point was to apply it to all emissions causing climate change, but start at a low rate and increase it over time. Yet, as the carbon tax has increased for households at the gas pump and to heat homes, large industrial players—including the oil and… View Article
Canada’s broken promises to migrant care workers
Jun 18, 2024
On June 3, 2024, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced new migrant care worker pilot programs, which take important steps to address some of the concerns raised by workers and advocates. Unfortunately, Canada has a long track record of broken promises to migrant care workers and it is not clear how the new pilot programs would… View Article
Trapped in the wage gap
May 30, 2024
On June 1, BC’s minimum wage is going up to $17.40 per hour. Despite this welcome pay raise for the 240,000 lowest-paid workers in the province, the minimum wage remains over $3 per hour lower than the lowest living wage in BC ($20.64 in Dawson Creek). In BC’s largest cities, Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria,… View Article
Time to scale up: next steps for non-market housing in BC
May 7, 2024
Despite some positive policy moves, BC is still not meeting the demands of the housing crisis. We need more non-market housing in BC now…. View Article
Bolder moves needed for taxing the rich
May 1, 2024
Even with the 2024 change, the income from buying and selling assets will be taxed less than from working. … View Article
The case for expanding democratic employee ownership in Canada
Apr 29, 2024
Workers lack democratic rights in the corporations and institutions that govern their work lives. As we find ourselves in an era of high inequality the question of ‘why shouldn’t working people be the owners and beneficiaries of the fruits of their labour?’ becomes timely and necessary. Read this research report on what it’d take to make democratic employee ownership a reality in Canada…. View Article
Thanks for a great ride
Apr 26, 2024
Twenty years ago, an insect attack of biblical proportions in British Columbia’s forests became a hot-button topic. Thanks to unusually warm winters (guess why), mountain pine beetles exploded in number in the province’s interior forests killing millions upon millions of lodgepole pine trees. The provincial government responded by approving huge increases in logging so that… View Article
As wood pellet exports to Japan surge, BC’s primary forests feel the strain
Apr 24, 2024
In the land of the rising sun, the light of a setting sun glints so brightly on the shiny metal piping of Renova’s Ishinomaki Hibarino power plant that you have to shield your eyes. Located near the city of Sendai, north of Tokyo, the new thermal electricity plant is one of several in Japan that… View Article
Beyond Recovery: A paradox in COVID-19 pandemic recovery | Panel discussion
Apr 23, 2024
This year, the CCPA–BC Office, in collaboration with SFU Faculty of Health Science researchers and UNITE HERE Local 40, published ‘A paradox in COVID-19 pandemic recovery: Increased precarity of women hotel workers in British Columbia’. A panel discussion held on April 10 featured the report’s authors and hotel industry workers. They explored the report’s findings,… View Article
Why BC needs sectoral bargaining now
Apr 4, 2024
Too many BC workers lack meaningful access to the benefits of collective bargaining and the failure of our labour laws to keep up with the evolving nature of work is a key culprit…. View Article
Time for a new public transit investment plan
Mar 28, 2024
Imagine being able to get from almost anywhere in BC to anywhere else on public transit, as one might in Europe or Asia. Or visitors landing at Vancouver airport and being able to get seamlessly around the province without the need to rent a car. Whether it’s dealing with bumper-to-bumper congestion in Metro Vancouver or… View Article