Archive
That 70s show: The evolution of income inequality in Canada
Jul 13, 2023
This brief looks at the evolution of inequality going back to 1976. Drawing on Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey, it reviews changes in the distribution of income by decile (groupings of ten percent of households ranked by income from lowest to highest income), and asks a hypothetical question: what would today’s incomes look like… View Article
BC First Nation logs almost all of its treaty lands, leaving behind lots of stumps and questions
Jul 10, 2023
In just three years, much of the McLeod Lake Indian Band’s treaty lands were stripped of their bountiful and exceedingly valuable trees in a surge of logging that included one massive clear-cut that is almost 3,000 hectares in size, or 7.5 times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The extensive logging by the band of… View Article
Landmark health care case spotlights problems of a profit-centred system
Jun 23, 2023
In April, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a case involving the constitutionality of legal limits on private finance in health care. A 14-year legal saga has ended, but many provinces seem to be ignoring evidence in this case indicating that a profit-centred system does not serve the public interest. Proponents of for-profit… View Article
Our recommendations for the 2024 BC budget
Jun 22, 2023
The BC government is holding its annual public consultation on Budget 2024 this June, inviting British Columbians to share their priorities for government investment next year. On June 14, I presented the CCPA–BC’s recommendations to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Via the BC Legislative Assembly website, you can hear my presentation… View Article
Open letter on regulating platform work from BC experts in labour law, policy and economics
Jun 20, 2023
The following is an open letter released today led by the CCPA–BC and the Centre for Future Work. It is signed by 61 leading experts in labour law, policy and economics (signatories listed below). The letter urges the BC government to implement strong measures to ensure that ride-share and food delivery platforms fulfill the same… View Article
BC’s Housing Supply Act could help break housing gridlock
Jun 15, 2023
As the housing crisis continues apace, the BC government is moving ahead with implementation of the Housing Supply Act, passed in November. This is good news because the housing shortage in this province is as severe as ever. Ultra-low vacancy rates have taken hold in the province’s most expensive regions like Vancouver and Victoria, forcing… View Article
The Bank of Canada’s obsession with interest rate hikes is hurting households: How did we get here and what are the alternatives?
Jun 7, 2023
The Bank of Canada’s June decision to raise its overnight, or policy, interest rate to 4.75% is predicated on cooling an overly strong economy afflicted by stubbornly high inflation. Yet, it’s not at all clear that the Bank’s narrative makes sense and, in one major category, housing, higher interest rates will make inflation worse by… View Article
Budget 2023: a risky bet on cleaner capitalism
Jun 1, 2023
With roughly $62 billion in new climate-related spending over the next decade, the federal government’s 2023 budget doubled down on climate action with a focus on investment in the clean economy. However, the budget locks in a particular approach to climate action—one where incentives to the private sector do the heavy lifting of growing green… View Article
BC’s Homes for People plan: Some positive steps but still behind on non-market housing
May 16, 2023
The BC government’s April 2023 Homes for People (HFP) plan marks an important step forward towards better managing and regulating housing in the province. With a headline commitment of $4.2 billion over three years (and $12 billion over 10 years), the plan includes new measures to support renters, some loosening of zoning restrictions, new speed… View Article
Why Canada still needs a wealth tax—and what it could fund
May 9, 2023
The rise of extreme inequality has provoked growing calls for an annual wealth tax on the super-rich around the world, and Canada is no exception. Backed by a growing body of economic research, proposals for a wealth tax have high levels of support among Canadians across party lines. Yet, an annual wealth tax is nowhere… View Article
Promises of cleaner air up in smoke
Apr 28, 2023
Calls for BC environment minister to suspend pellet mill permit Every year, the air in the Bulkley Valley community of Smithers becomes hazardous to human health as thousands of fires known as slash burns are deliberately set at logging sites. The contaminated air can stay trapped in the valley’s airshed for extended periods as the… View Article
Waning transparency in Canada: Is access to information broken?
Apr 27, 2023
At the federal, provincial and even the local level, there was a time when governments in Canada seemed to think transparency about their operations was a pretty good idea. Not anymore. At the federal level, the issue of transparency through access to information has even been sent to the United Nations. The Nova Scotia-based Centre… View Article
New survey data shines light on the extent and impacts of precarious employment in BC
Apr 13, 2023
The rise of the “gig economy” and on-demand work through online platforms like Uber and Skip the Dishes has ignited public debate about precarious work and what makes a “good job.” We all know that precarious work existed long before Uber and is not limited to the gig economy. But government efforts to develop an… View Article
The extra-long logging haul
Apr 12, 2023
As forests shrink, drivers work 16-hour days to deliver single loads of logs to BC sawmills When Eugene Wilson started driving a logging truck 24 years ago, he worked out of the Bulkley valley community of Houston three hours west of Prince George. He recalls the trips as if they were yesterday. He’d begin the… View Article
Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit
Mar 23, 2023
In 2007, then-BC premier Gordon Campbell passed the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act” committing BC to a 33 per cent reduction in emissions from 2007 levels by 2020. Despite premier Campbell’s good intentions, emissions in 2020 were down just 1.6 per cent. In 2016, in lieu of increasing the carbon tax implemented in Campbell’s greenhouse… View Article
Discussions of foreign interference and national security can quickly become toxic
Mar 21, 2023
Open Letter to the Right Honorable David Johnston, Independent Special Rapporteur, Government of Canada from the Advisory Group, Canada-China Focus. Signatories below. We are deeply concerned that discussions of foreign interference and national security can quickly become toxic as we have already seen in the accusations that a respected Chinese Canadian senator and a newly elected mayor are agents of… View Article
Houston Falling: Super-sized mills lead to super-sized problems for BC forests and workers
Mar 2, 2023
When the world’s biggest sawmill opened its doors, then-premier Gordon Campbell enthused that it could shoot out enough lumber to build all of British Columbia’s new annual housing stock, which was then averaging 26,000 units per year. After the ribbon was cut and the first logs passed through its computerized scanners and whirring sawblades on… View Article
We know BC has a gender pay gap – it’s time to do something about it
Mar 2, 2023
This article is excerpted from an open letter released today by a coalition that CCPA-BC helped to convene, and that includes Indigenous organizations, workers’ rights groups, labour unions, law and policy advocates, researchers and community leaders. Want to add your voice to the call? Individuals can sign on here, and organizations can join the list… View Article
BC budget does the right thing by prioritizing investment over austerity
Mar 1, 2023
BC’s first budget under Premier David Eby includes substantial funding increases in housing, health care, income supports and cost of living tax credits, as well as allocating a record level of investment towards capital infrastructure. This not only represents much-needed progress towards meeting some of the big challenges facing our province but also prudently continues… View Article
Does the global “loss and damages” fund negotiated at COP27 offer lessons for BC?
Feb 23, 2023
The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) ended last November with an historic agreement to establish a “loss and damages” fund to address the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable nations. Given the disasters BC has faced over the last couple of years, is this a model the province could draw on to… View Article