Employment & labour

Kinder Morgan: Costs and benefits unbalanced, not in the national interest

Apr 23, 2018

The Alberta and federal governments claim that Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) is in the national interest due to its economic benefits. But a closer look at TMX’s full range of benefits and costs shows the project to be extremely lopsided in its distribution. First, the economic gains accrue almost entirely to Alberta… View Article

Does BC need a UK-style Minister of Loneliness?

Mar 28, 2018

By Peter Prontzos

A British Cabinet Minister, Tracey Crouch, has been given the task of coming up with a national strategy to combat an epidemic of loneliness in the UK. Loneliness is a health problem around the world, and British Columbia is no exception. Social isolation is increasing here and across our country. SFU’s Director of Gerontology, Andrew Wister, notes… View Article

Technology is changing how we work. How this affects workers is up to us.

Mar 8, 2018

By Iglika Ivanova

While many workers of my parents’ generation expected to spend their entire careers in a permanent full-time job with one or two employers, young workers today increasingly face project-based or limited-term employment options. In fact, the very structure of what a job looks like is changing as technology unbundles traditional occupations into smaller tasks that can… View Article

Relax. Employer health taxes haven’t sunk businesses in other provinces

By Alex Hemingway

The cries of concern from some are startling, but BC is only catching up to the rest of the country by eliminating the Medical Services Plan and replacing it with the new Employer Health Tax. In last month’s budget, the provincial government confirmed it will scrap Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums in 2020 and partly… View Article

Seven ways to grow BC’s co-op sector

Mar 6, 2018

By Elvy Del Bianco, John Kay, Mary Childs, Ben Hyman and Marc Lee

On May 17, 2017, some 36 representatives from British Columbia’s co-operative (or ‘co-op’) sector met to share ideas about how to grow the sector, to better understand challenges that co-ops are facing, and to explore next steps—both in terms of what the sector can accomplish itself, as well as what government support will be needed… View Article

Raising the minimum wage is good for public health

Feb 5, 2018

By Andrew Longhurst

Soon we expect the Fair Wages Commission to advise the BC government on a path towards a $15 minimum wage and a plan for regular increases. This will be very good news for our province. Increasing the minimum wage is an important step in reducing poverty and income inequalities that cause poor health. In charting… View Article

Inclusive growth and the future of work: A recap of our 2017 Rosenbluth Lecture with Armine Yalnizyan

Dec 5, 2017

By Iglika Ivanova

This year, the CCPA-BC’s annual Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial lecture featured one of Canada’s leading progressive economists, Armine Yalnizyan, who shared some insights on the changing world of work and the importance of achieving inclusive growth. Making growth inclusive has become a global policy priority backed, at least on paper, by international organizations like the OECD,… View Article

Seven immediate steps to reduce poverty while the government consults on a comprehensive poverty reduction plan

Nov 1, 2017

By Seth Klein and Iglika Ivanova

Earlier this week, the BC government appointed an Advisory Forum on Poverty Reduction to provide expertise and assistance to the Minster of Social Development and Poverty Reduction in the development of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy for BC. The 27 people named to the Forum represent communities across the province and bring diverse skills, perspectives… View Article

Employment supports and labour market participation: 20th Anniversary retrospective

Oct 13, 2017

By David Fairey

From 2001 to 2003, BC’s new Liberal government instituted significant policy reforms in the delivery and governance of public services. In 2004, Simon Fraser University and the CCPA-BC secured a five-year Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) grant to research how those reforms were affecting the economic security… View Article

Historic gains in Ontario workers’ rights: What BC can learn

Jun 12, 2017