Features

How (and how much) doctors are paid: why it matters

Jan 15, 2019

How we pay doctors through our public health system is an important issue that receives little public scrutiny, despite the fact that physician compensation represents a significant share of the provincial budget and has been among the fastest-growing health care costs in recent years. A very useful analysis was conducted by BC’s Auditor General in… View Article

Whose wealth is it anyway? BC’s top 10 billionaires and the rest of us

Dec 12, 2018

By Alex Hemingway and David Macdonald

Economic inequality has exploded in recent decades—globally, in Canada and here in BC. Much of our concern about inequality has focused on the growth of extreme disparities between the incomes of the very rich and those of us on the middle and lower rungs of the income ladder. But there’s been much less focus on… View Article

True reconciliation in BC requires implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Nov 29, 2018

By Kukpi7 Judy Wilson

In the span of a decade, we have moved from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples being largely absent from political and public discourse in BC to being fully endorsed by both the federal and provincial governments. In May 2017, implementation of the UN Declaration was called “foundational” to the Confidence and… View Article

What’s missing from the Uber debate? Market power, congestion, pollution, and even deaths

Nov 26, 2018

By Alex Hemingway

The BC government has introduced legislation expected to bring ride-hailing to the province late next year, though many questions remain about what the outcome will be in practice. A number of important policy details still need to be filled in by the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC. Meanwhile the debate on ride-hailing has largely been… View Article

Dangerous precedent: Petronas subsidiary gets free pass after building unlicensed fracking dams

Oct 22, 2018

By Ben Parfitt

In a decision without precedent in its 25 years of existence, British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) has told Progress Energy that two massive unauthorized dams that it built will not have to undergo environmental assessments. The decision comes after the company made an audacious request to the EAO to have the two dams declared… View Article

Housing platforms and platitudes in the 2018 Vancouver election

Oct 11, 2018

By Marc Lee

It should be no surprise that Vancouver’s growing housing affordability crisis is the top issue going into the election. All candidates are in favour of affordable housing, of course. Sorting out the chatter from concrete plans, however, can be difficult—not least because of the way Vancouver’s municipal politics has fractured going into the election, with… View Article

Paved with good intentions: A guide to evolving climate policies in BC

Sep 12, 2018

By Marc Lee

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, an economics professor of mine used to say back in the late 1980s. Concerned about the federal government’s inability to reign in fiscal deficits, hell back then was hitting a “financial wall” where the markets would no longer lend or would only do so at catastrophically… View Article

How BC is short-changing schools and how we can fix it

Aug 16, 2018

By Michal Rozworski

Students using 30-year-old textbooks, teachers buying basic supplies, schools permanently on edge of closing—this is the all too common face of public education in British Columbia in 2018. This is despite the past school year seeing the first meaningful injection of funds into BC schools in over a decade. The new money is paying for… View Article

The Petro State Lackey: How BC’s zest for natural gas fuels Alberta’s oil sands

Aug 8, 2018

By Ben Parfitt

In the past year, an energy dispute for the ages has played out in Canada, culminating in the federal government announcing that it will buy an aging oil pipeline for $4.5 billion and then twin it with a new high-capacity pipeline that would move massive amounts of diluted bitumen from Alberta to tidewater in British… View Article

Gas gouging in Metro Vancouver: Blame Big Oil, not taxes

Jun 11, 2018

By Marc Lee

Everyone is talking about the high price of gas in Metro Vancouver, which hit a new record in May, topping $1.60 per litre. The story making the rounds is that taxes are to blame—in particular the April 1 increase in BC’s carbon tax. Some have seized on this moment to call for tax cuts to… View Article

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A progressive take on BC issues

A progressive take on BC issues

Features

How (and how much) doctors are paid: why it matters

Whose wealth is it anyway? BC’s top 10 billionaires and the rest of us

True reconciliation in BC requires implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

What’s missing from the Uber debate? Market power, congestion, pollution, and even deaths

Dangerous precedent: Petronas subsidiary gets free pass after building unlicensed fracking dams

Housing platforms and platitudes in the 2018 Vancouver election

Paved with good intentions: A guide to evolving climate policies in BC

How BC is short-changing schools and how we can fix it

The Petro State Lackey: How BC’s zest for natural gas fuels Alberta’s oil sands

Gas gouging in Metro Vancouver: Blame Big Oil, not taxes