Archive
Reflections on the Citizens’ Assembly
Apr 30, 2009
One of the most interesting stories behind BC’s Single Transferable Vote referendum is how we got there. The Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform ran for a year, a fascinating exercise in deliberative democracy, and perhaps the most interesting and forward-looking thing done by the Liberals in their first term. Wendy Bergerud was a CA member… View Article
School funding an election issue at the local level
Apr 30, 2009
It hasn’t particularly reached the level of a provincial election issue, but school funding is quietly percolating along as an issue at the local level. The provincial election overlaps with the time that school boards set their budgets and many of those school boards are making cuts due to lack of funding. A few examples?… View Article
BC’s economy and the Liberal platform
Apr 29, 2009
With my oped last week on the NDP platform making me less than popular over at NDP HQ, today the Sun published my take on the Liberals’ platform, thereby guaranteeing that the list of Christmas parties I get invited to dwindles to next to nothing. BC’s Economic Challenges and the Liberal Platform By Marc Lee… View Article
The Ghost of Elections Past (revised)
Apr 29, 2009
From our STV series in the new BC Commentary, UVic historian Ben Isitt looks to the past when he sees STV. UPDATE (April 30): It seems that there is some confusion about the term Single Transferable Vote and its applicability to the 1952 and 1953 elections. Dennis Pilon, also from U Vic wrote to say… View Article
BC’s soaring EI claims
Apr 28, 2009
Today’s Statistics Canada release features the latest (February 2009) stats on Employment Insurance claims. From February 2008 to February 2009, the number of EI beneficiaries is up 69%. And the number is up 11.6% just between January and February. More evidence that the BC economy is in much worse shape than the major political parties… View Article
How Workers’ Compensation cut costs for employers and benefits for injured workers
Apr 27, 2009
A report published by the BC Federation of Labour last week finds that since 2002 employers have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in Workers’ Compensation expenses at the cost of reduced benefits to injured workers. I never cease to be amazed that such a report, which outlines the hardship to injured workers from the… View Article
Oh, about that recession …
Apr 27, 2009
BC’s recession started in 2008. That is the upshot of today’s release of Statistics Canada’s Provincial Economic Accounts, which provides the first estimates of BC’s GDP for 2008. Unlike national data, which are provided quarterly and on a timely basis, we have to wait about four months to tally the various provincial beans. These numbers… View Article
To Tax or Not to Tax — That is Not the Question!
Apr 27, 2009
It was disappointing to read Mark Jaccard’s sensational, but grossly misleading forecast of massive job loss if the NDP eliminates the carbon tax. Sure, if the NDP axes the tax and implements a cap and trade on large emitters to extract all the GHG reductions needed to achieve B.C.’s targets, there would be a huge… View Article
STV is worth trying
Apr 25, 2009
Great to see a debate kicked off among our research associates and others about the pros and cons of BC-STV. As Marc mentions below, the current issue of the CCPA’s BC Commentary has a special collection on STV, which you can download here. Keith outlines the case against STV below. And while the CCPA has… View Article
Another side to STV
Apr 25, 2009
I will take Marc’s suggestion and provide a bit of information on the other side of STV. No STV recommends on their web site that people watch the video on STV prepared by the Citizens’ Assembly. They suggest that watching this video in support of STV will be enough to convince people it is not… View Article
That other election: STV
Apr 22, 2009
By now, you have probably seen the lawn signs. True, they look a bit like NDP colours but they are actually non-partisan pro-STV signs (not signs for a guy named Steve, with an Eastern European spelling of his name, running for the dippers). You may remember STV from the 2005 BC election, where STV captured… View Article
The NDP Platform and BC’s Economic Challenges
Apr 20, 2009
Below is an oped of mine that was done at the request of the Vancouver Sun and that ran in today’s paper. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the last two paragraphs were cut off, leaving the oped hanging. I put them back in below, and have requested that the online version be… View Article
Green Gods Abandoned by Godless Socialists?
Apr 17, 2009
So Keith Baldrey thinks the NDP has sold its environmental soul by opposing so-called green run-of-river IPPs. And Mark Jaccard , Tzepora Berman and friends predict economic and environment ruin from the NDP’s plan to abolish the Liberals’ carbon tax. As for run-of-river IPPs, the fact is they are not very green, at least not… View Article
How green are BC’s climate policies?
Apr 16, 2009
One of the most striking contradictions in BC’s climate action plan is the oil and gas industry. Greg Amos in The Hook, quotes our “green” premier out on the campaign trail in the northeast: “Let me tell you what’s happened in the energy industry in British Columbia in the last eight years: thirteen billion dollars… View Article
The devil take the hindmost
Apr 15, 2009
In an earlier post I talked about the fact that when New Brunswick raised its minimum wage this spring, BC would be tied in last place for the lowest minimum wage in Canada. NB raised its minimum wage today and now BC, with the highest cost of living in Canada, is tied with two provinces… View Article
BC’s Carbon Tax Clash
Apr 15, 2009
With the BC election campaign now officially on, the carbon tax debate is back. Since the fall’s federal election, when the Prime Minister dropped in to beat up the carbon tax to solidify his support in BC, the carbon tax has dropped off the public radar, replaced by stories about the economic and financial crisis…. View Article
March unemployment hits women and young
Apr 10, 2009
There is an interesting side story to the information that came out last week showing a big jump in unemployment in BC. Almost all of the increase was among two groups – women and young people. The overall unemployment rate jumped from 6.7% to 7.4%. The increase for men over the age of 25 was… View Article
Unemployment surges again in March
Apr 9, 2009
Just in time for a heated election campaign, the latest unemployment numbers paint a grim picture for BC. Just a year ago, BC was coasting along with an unemployment rate of just over 4%. By the end of 2008 that had crept up to 5%. And now a truly brutal first quarter that saw the… View Article
Docs call for more attention to addiction
Apr 8, 2009
The BC Medical Association released an important report at the end of March. The Vancouver Sun gave it good coverage, but overall it didn’t get the attention it deserved. Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in BC raises a lot of issues worth talking about in an election. The report estimates there are 400,000 British Columbians… View Article
Your government cares about seniors (in up to five communities across the province)
Apr 7, 2009
This is the message that the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport Mary Polak sent out yesterday with the announcement of a new partnership between the government and the United Way of the Lower Mainland. As part of this partnership, the government will spend $700,000 to fund what sounds like a broad-based community consultation with… View Article