Features

BC First Nations are poised to lead the renewable energy transition

Oct 12, 2017
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These are exciting times in British Columbia for those interested in building sustainable, just and climate-friendly energy systems. The recent change in government could mean a shift away from a corporate agenda driven by the needs of a massively energy-intensive fracking and LNG industry towards one that prioritizes action on climate change, First Nations’ self-determination… View Article

Vancouver looks to more ambitious affordability proposals

Oct 3, 2017
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When the previous BC government brought in a 15% foreign buyer tax in August 2016, Metro Vancouver’s housing market paused: real estate transactions dropped dramatically, prices fell at the high end of the market and housing starts slowed. By Spring 2017, however, the housing market rediscovered its animal spirits, and more recently we are back… View Article

A Dam Troublesome Exception: Progress Energy’s dams should not be exempted from environmental review

Oct 2, 2017
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I sent the following letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company also failed to obtain other… View Article

Firehose of corporate cash or financing our democracy together? A no-brainer

Sep 25, 2017
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A long-overdue and badly-needed overhaul of BC’s election finance rules was introduced by the provincial government last week. Media headlines mostly focused on the decision to include public funding for political parties, questioning whether it is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and whether the governing NDP has reversed itself on this issue. But this… View Article

BC’s last Climate “Leadership” Plan was written in big oil’s boardroom (literally)

Sep 18, 2017
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Newly uncovered documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal the cozy relationship between the fossil fuel industry and the last BC government went even further than suspected — all the way to inviting industry to directly craft the province’s climate “leadership” plan. Let’s rewind for a second: back in the spring of 2015, then-premier… View Article

Four lessons about electoral reform for a new BC government

Jun 5, 2017
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Under their recent agreement, the BC NDP and Greens have promised a referendum on electoral reform in BC. This is great news. A huge amount of good could come from changing our outdated first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, as Alex Himelfarb argued in a recent analysis for CCPA (although he was speaking to the federal context). Let’s… View Article