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 challenge to the 44th Parliament: Make the global fossil fuel phase-out your legacy

Oct 28, 2021
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In the past five years, the federal government has brought in important climate policies — including a national carbon price and coal power phase-out — that have helped flatten Canada’s emissions curve. On the other hand, this government has championed fossil fuel extraction at home and abroad, exemplified most clearly by the purchase of the… View Article

Five lessons from BC’s horrific wildfire season

Oct 7, 2021
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In British Columbia, climate change is no longer something abstract for the future. The late June heat dome event—that claimed 500-600 lives—and the wildfires that followed confirm that climate change is a clear and present danger that’s not going away any time soon. As of September 28, some 867,000 hectares of land had burned, making… View Article

Big ideas on the supply side of housing affordability

Jul 14, 2021
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The final report of the Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability, published in June 2021, contains 23 recommendations made primarily to the BC and federal governments. The Panel organized these under five broad calls to action:    Creating a planning framework that proactively encourages housing;   Reforming fees on… View Article

Canada’s road to zero carbon emissions full of dangerous distractions

Jun 28, 2021
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Net zero is increasingly used regarding emissions reduction targets. But what does it really mean?  With the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12) Canada is joining many nations in setting a target of net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. Unfortunately, this conversation promises to be a dangerous distraction for Canadian policy makers,… View Article

Basic income panel calls for major reforms to income security in BC

Mar 29, 2021
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When the final report of BC’s Basic Income Panel came out in January, the media coverage was largely reduced to a few dismissive headlines that the panel had rejected basic income. Behind the headlines, however, is a comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of the state of poverty in BC and the large number of existing programs,… View Article

How to build affordable rental housing in Vancouver

Mar 16, 2021
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We are often told that building affordable housing is just too expensive: land prices are too high, construction costs are rising, development fees and labyrinthine bureaucratic processes are stifling projects. There is some truth in each of these explanations, but to really get a major build-out of affordable housing we need to stop relying on… View Article

Rosenbluth Lecture 2021: Peter Victor, Slower by Design, not Disaster

Mar 12, 2021
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The Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture was held virtually in February. The lecture is in honour of Gideon Rosenbluth, who was an esteemed professor of economics at the University of British Columbia and a research associate with the CCPA’s BC Office.  As a young person, Peter Victor looked at the now-iconic, then newly minted image of… View Article

Fracking in BC’s northeast

Feb 23, 2021
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Last summer I got out of Vancouver and toured northern BC. While the trip was mostly for pleasure, my inner economist could not resist some industrial tourism and visits to resource towns and major industrial sites that are the heart and soul of BC’s resource economy. Forestry dominates near Prince George, fishing at Prince Rupert,… View Article

Vacancy control: taking the next step on housing affordability

Feb 11, 2021
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Recently, two Ontario-based Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) purchased 15 Vancouver apartment buildings for $292 million from Hollyburn Properties. Tenants in those buildings, totaling 614 units, now face a massively elevated risk of being evicted by absentee landlords so that higher rents can be charged to new tenants.  Tenants should be concerned because of a… View Article

Time for zero carbon housing and buildings in BC

Jan 21, 2021
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BC needs a lot of new affordable housing and any build out should ensure that it meets the highest standards for energy efficiency, including zero-carbon operations. Residential, commercial and institutional buildings produce 11% of BC’s GHG emissions, mainly from burning natural gas for heating and hot water. Updated building codes are needed to make the… View Article