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

STV: A better democracy and more progressive politics

May 1, 2009
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Dennis Pilon from UVic published this excellent article on STV in the CCPA Monitor, so I am republishing it below: MAY 12 DECISION DAY FOR B.C. VOTERS: Change to STV system would be helpful to progressives By Dennis Pilon May 12, 2009 will be the “make-or-break” day for voting system reform in British Columbia, and… View Article

Reflections on the Citizens’ Assembly

Apr 30, 2009
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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

BC’s economy and the Liberal platform

Apr 29, 2009
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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
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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
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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

Oh, about that recession …

Apr 27, 2009
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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

That other election: STV

Apr 22, 2009
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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
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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

How green are BC’s climate policies?

Apr 16, 2009
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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

BC’s Carbon Tax Clash

Apr 15, 2009
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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