Archive
Corporate tax cuts haven’t delivered
Mar 23, 2011
Yesterday I debated an economist from the Fraser Institute on CBC radio about the Federal Budget. One of the points of contention (and indeed, one of the core issues around which this budget will likely bring down the government) was the matter and merits of corporate tax cuts. My point: corporate tax cuts simply have… View Article
More thoughts on BC’s new minimum wage
Mar 23, 2011
As some of you may have seen, Adrienne Montani (of First Call) and I had a piece in the Vancouver Sun earlier this week: a “memo” to the new Premier on what a “Families First” agenda should look like . (If you didn’t see it, you can find it here.) In it, we praised Cristy… View Article
Reading the tea leaves in a Cabinet shuffle
Mar 15, 2011
Figuring out what the changes in a Cabinet shuffle mean is a lot like reading tea leaves: you can find just about anything you can imagine. Christy Clark’s first Cabinet announced yesterday is no exception. That being said, there are some things that stand out as pretty strong likelihoods. First of all it looks like… View Article
How flipping equity in P3s boosts profits and ends up with the projects being run from Channel Islands tax havens
Mar 9, 2011
Just like good stilton cheese, public private partnerships (P3s) were imported to British Columbia from the United Kingdom. And like good stilton, in the UK P3s are starting to smell. In 2003, as part of its privatization agenda, BC’s government created Partnerships BC as a private company owned by the Ministry of Finance. Partnerships BC’s… View Article
Tradable Water Rights – Coming to a province near you
Mar 5, 2011
In January of this year, the BC government joined Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to become the fourth province to announce that it is considering creating tradable water rights as a way of curbing use and improving the efficiency of allocation. The announcement came as a vague reference to “water markets” in the latest draft of… View Article
Hydro rate hikes are bad news for BC’s poorest
Mar 3, 2011
BC Hydro has proposed to dramatically increase its residential electricity rates. While the proposal still must be approved by the BC Utilities Commission, and the BCUC could intervene to change those rates in its decision, as it stands low- to middle-income households are going to get hammered. For example, the 12% of BC households with… View Article
The Frontier Centre’s dubious numbers about public sector wages
Feb 28, 2011
As if the Fraser Institute needed any help getting its message in the media, there are now a number of Fraser clones that are preaching the same message. One of those clones, Winnipeg’s Frontier Centre for Public Policy, has gotten a lot of ink in the last few weeks with a report arguing that salaries… View Article
When everything you ask for isn’t enough – BC business calls for more cuts to labour standards
Feb 24, 2011
Last November BC’s Labour Minister quietly announced his Ministry was conducting a review of employment standards and the minimum wage. There has been virtually no news coverage on this. That’s too bad because the results could be important for BC workers. The recommendations could offer a blueprint for BC’s new Liberal Premier to be chosen… View Article
Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing
Feb 23, 2011
Today, we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing: Lessons from BC, by yours truly. I’m excited about getting this paper out into the world, given that climate policy seems to have fallen off the radar in BC – even as we are seeing daily evidence of the impacts of… View Article
An Interesting Spin
Feb 23, 2011
In its latest planning document, BC Hydro is forecasting a rate increase of 50% over the next five years. In fact, earlier BC Hydro submissions to the BC Utilities Commission revealed that rates are expected to increase at that pace for the next ten years, with rates forecast to more than double over that period. Not… View Article
Hats off to you, Mr. McKimm
Feb 17, 2011
In the mountain of material presented with the 2011 BC Budget (OK, much of it was an electronic mountain) there was one remarkable nugget of candor. Each ministry and agency is required to prepare a Service Plan that is published with the Budget. These were initiated originally to provide more transparency in government work. Over… View Article
Much ado about the provincial debt
Feb 16, 2011
If you read Vaughn Palmer’s online budget analysis in the Vancouver Sun, you’d be forgiven thinking that deficit hysteria is making a comeback in BC. The title of his online piece, Debt Hits Historic High, disappoints with its blatant sensationalism. Yes, it is technically true that in straight up current dollars debt hit a historic… View Article
BC Budget Commentary: where is the debate on new priorities?
Feb 16, 2011
For what was billed as a no-news budget, the 2011 February Budget is causing quite the splash in the media. In the absence of policy changes to discuss, the size of the provincial debt has emerged as the main issue of debate. Is it growing too fast? Is it going to become a problem when… View Article
Raising the minimum wage: not if but how much and how fast
Feb 10, 2011
While lone voices from the business sector still oppose a minimum wage increase (as in this article in The Province), the minimum wage debate in BC has now firmly shifted past the question of whether we should raise it or not. Virtually all leadership contenders for both the BC Liberals and the BC NDP have… View Article
Christy Clark’s “sustained development”
Feb 1, 2011
A news release from the Christy Clark camp puts its focus on energy policy in BC. While the press release reads as slickly as its candidate, let’s pause to deconstruct its key messages: “British Columbia is in an enviable energy position and we need to take full advantage of the resources we have in the… View Article
Free to grow or free to fail? Emerging science raises questions about health of our future forests
Jan 31, 2011
As tree-planting company representatives from across British Columbia gather in Kelowna for a conference this week, a lot of attention will focus on the question of just how significant a reforestation challenge we have on our hands in the province. Even those of us who know comparatively little about our forests understand that some astonishing… View Article
Over a decade, average BC wages fall below Canadian average
Jan 21, 2011
Every week the government publication BC Stats Infoline publishes a summary of usually pretty interesting things going on in British Columbia. They have a nice archive of these publications and it can be helpful to go back and look at earlier publications. I looked at January 2001, the last year of the NDP government, and… View Article
The problems with the textbook analysis of minimum wages
Jan 20, 2011
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the sorry state of the BC minimum wage, stuck at $8 after nine years two months and still counting. Yes, it will likely increase very soon, now that almost all leadership candidates on both sides have expressed support for higher minimum wages, but one has got to ask… View Article
BC’s $8 minimum wage sets another record (low)
Jan 18, 2011
Did you know that BC, the home of the lowest minimum wage in Canada, just recently became the province with the longest minimum wage freeze in recent history? That is to say, since at least the mid-1960s when HRSDC data starts. BC’s minimum wage has now been stuck at $8 for nine years two months… View Article
Lib leadership contender ill informed or misleading on P3s
Jan 12, 2011
George Abbott has become the first of the BC Liberal leadership contenders to talk about the use of Public Private Partnerships (P3s) to deliver public facilities and services. Unfortunately, Abbott’s comments suggest either that he doesn’t understand how these projects are being imposed or he is misleading the interviewer. The government’s preferred P3 model is… View Article