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

A Clear Look at BC LNG

May 26, 2015
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Today we released a major new report, A Clear Look at BC LNG: Energy Security, Environmental Implications and Economic Potential, by geoscientist David Hughes. The report considers the ambition of the LNG enterprise as envisioned by the BC government, and delivers the first assessment of the cumulative impacts on LNG development, and in particular the huge… View Article

BC’s Carbon Emissions on the Rise

May 8, 2015
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It was a good story while it lasted. Over the past few years, the BC government and many in the policy community have spun a tale about the remarkable success of BC’s climate action policies, with a big spotlight on the carbon tax as a driver of lower emissions while BC’s economy outperformed the rest… View Article

A Conversation on Climate Justice

Apr 9, 2015
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In February and March, the Climate Justice Project hosted This Changes BC: A Conversation on Climate Justice. Over four Saturdays, a group of 34 citizens from Metro Vancouver gathered to talk about what climate solutions could look like in their lives and our province. Having worked on these issues for many years now, we had a… View Article

Low-carbon urban infrastructure: a view from Vancouver

Feb 18, 2015
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I have a new case study (full pdf; summary article from the publishers) out as part of the Economists for Equity and Environment‘s Future Economy Initiative. I look at the City of Vancouver’s Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU), a low-carbon district energy system that hits a sweet spot of clean energy, local control, and stable prices at competitive rates…. View Article

The case against a revenue-neutral carbon tax

Jan 15, 2015
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I’m a fan of carbon taxes, but increasingly I see the term “revenue-neutral” attached to it. Where I live, in BC, we have perhaps the most prominent example of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and carbon tax advocates have come to promoting the BC model to other jurisdictions, such as Ontario, who are contemplating their own carbon tax…. View Article

How the Pie is Sliced in BC

Nov 19, 2014
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It’s an interesting finding, and perhaps the start of a good trend: the share of income going to Canada’s top 1% has declined (Statscan release here, Globe story here). One great thing Statscan has done in recent years is to make its data freely available, so I went to dig deeper on national, BC and… View Article

A BC framework for LNG, part two: the LNG income tax

Oct 21, 2014
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Well, we saw this coming but it’s still sobering to see it in black and white. The BC government’s decision to cut its proposed LNG Income Tax in half (from 7% to 3.5%) is simply a cave in to industry. It’s massive giveaway of a public resource to global corporations by a desperate government who put… View Article

A BC framework for LNG, part one: the carbon benchmark

Oct 21, 2014
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The BC government’s proposed carbon pollution benchmarks for LNG plants leave much to be desired. The package is an impressive display of cognitive dissonance: thanks to BC’s inconvenient law, the 2007 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, along with its carbon tax, the BC government has cultivated a reputation for being a climate action leader; there’s even… View Article

Density, condos and housing affordability

Oct 16, 2014
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How is it that we have seen a non-stop construction boom in Vancouver over the past decade-plus and yet we still have huge homelessness and affordable housing problems? In the Figure, based on data from the BC Economic Accounts, it’s pretty clear that as a society we spend a lot building new housing. It varies cyclically but over the… View Article