Posts by Marc Lee

Marc Lee

About Marc Lee

Marc Lee is a Senior Economist at the CCPA’s BC Office. In addition to tracking federal and provincial budgets and economic trends, Marc has published on a range of topics from poverty and inequality to globalization and international trade to public services and regulation. Marc is Co-Director of the Climate Justice Project, a research partnership with UBC's School of Community and Regional Planning that examines the links between climate change policies and social justice. Follow Marc on Twitter

Affordable housing and its discontents

May 19, 2016
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The public and media response to my new study on affordable housing  exceeded expectations. I anticipated some really strong pushback against my proposals, because they’re pretty radical in today’s context where private sector development is taken for granted, and global capital flows into local real estate go largely unquestioned. By and large, the report was covered… View Article

Pipelines vs Paris: Canada’s climate conundrum

Apr 21, 2016
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The push for new pipelines to bring Alberta bitumen to “tidewater” is on, even as the ink is barely dry on the Paris Agreement, and its call to action on climate change. Alberta Premier Notley argues that “We’re not making a choice between the environment and the economy. We are building the economy.” For his part, Prime Minister… View Article

A carbon tax comes to Alberta

Apr 19, 2016
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Alberta’s 2016 Budget presents its plan to price carbon, in two parts: a new Carbon Levy applied to transportation and heating fuel, at $20 per tonne of CO2 (4.5 cents per litre at the pump) starting January 2017, rising to $30 (6.7 cents per litre) in 2018; and, changes to the  Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER) framework… View Article

BC government’s spin cycle on LNG

Mar 15, 2016
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Last year, we made freedom of information requests to the BC government about two CCPA-BC studies: A Clear Look at LNG by David Hughes (released May 26) and LNG and Employment in BC by myself (released July 28). Both reports poke holes in extravagant claims being made by the BC government about natural gas supplies, environmental impacts, and economic benefits of… View Article

Don’t believe the hype on BC’s carbon tax

Mar 2, 2016
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The other day, I saw two new examples of breathless praise for BC’s carbon tax, and how it has been wonderful for the province economically and environmentally. Here’s the New York Times: [T]he most important takeaway for American skeptics is that the policy basically worked as advertised. British Columbia’s economy did not collapse. In fact,… View Article

Reducing poverty and carbon emissions: lessons from Manitoba

Feb 26, 2016
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I often get asked about alternatives to our fossil-fuelled status quo. In recent years, there have been many new projects that point to the way forward, that get beyond vague statements about reducing carbon emissions and boosting clean energy. Our CCPA-BC office held a conference last year to examine new approaches to good and green jobs…. View Article

Methane emissions from fracking: clean LNG’s dirty secret

Feb 25, 2016
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The proposed Woodfibre LNG plant near Squamish is an example of what has been called “clean LNG” – that is, the plant will use grid electricity from BC Hydro to power the energy-intensive liquefaction process, instead of gas. This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly for this one part of the supply chain. The Woodfibre… View Article

Petronas’ Pacific NorthWest LNG: profile of a carbon bomb

Feb 23, 2016
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I submitted the following in response to a call by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency for public comments on the February 2016 draft environmental assessment of the Pacific NorthWest LNG, also commonly known as the Petronas LNG project given the lead corporate proponent. (You can make a submission too). This submission is in regards to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions… View Article

Housing budget? Not so much.

Feb 17, 2016
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It was supposed to be the housing budget, with action to address a top issue facing the province. Today’s banner headline from The Globe and Mail (“Balanced BC budget aims to cool hot real estate market”) implies that they did take concrete measures. But if you read the budget, there is not much there relative… View Article