Frontpage-feature

A pile of wood pellets is shown in front of a cross-section view of a stack of logs.

Trees to pellets? Scarred by two previous resource industry boom and busts, pivotal decisions lie ahead for community of Fort Nelson

Feb 17, 2021
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The residents of Fort Nelson know better than most rural British Columbians about the harsh economic realities of resource dependency. It is now 13 years since the forest industry ditched the community in dramatic fashion when Canfor Corp. ceased all its local operations in the region and closed its plywood and oriented strand board (OSB)… View Article

Who benefits from caribou decline?

Dec 4, 2020
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Scientists predict caribou herds located in northeastern BC will go extinct within our lifetimes. How could this be? We were led to believe that environmental oversight introduced decades ago would protect this iconic Canadian species despite the large-scale industrial development that threatens them. We were promised a win-win: thriving caribou and a thriving economy. Fast… View Article

TMX: What’s at stake?

Oct 29, 2020
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New research from veteran earth scientist David Hughes concludes that the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project (TMX) makes no financial sense. In fact, Alberta heavy oil producers can expect to lose money on every barrel of oil they produce and move through TMX. Contrary to claims that bringing heavy oil to tidewater for export to… View Article

Reality Check: Progress on child care in BC, 2012-2020

Oct 9, 2020
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In the early days of the current BC election campaign child care took centre stage when NDP leader John Horgan recommitted his party to fully implement the $10aDay Plan1 if elected on October 24. Public discussion and commentary followed in the media and from other parties. Questions were raised about the progress achieved on child care… View Article
Aerial photo of two cars in a minor accident

Creeping privatization is not the fix to auto insurance in BC

Oct 8, 2020
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As part of BC’s election campaign, the BC Liberal party pledged this week to move away from universal public auto insurance by opening up basic coverage to private insurance corporations. The claim made by party leader Andrew Wilkinson is that cheaper rates will follow from having private corporations sell insurance plans (using the old litigation-driven,… View Article

Site C’s radical makeover: What the ‘L’ is going on at problem-plagued dam construction project where costs keep piling up and completion remains years away?

Sep 11, 2020
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BC Hydro knew 30 years before it started building the Site C dam that its chosen location for the most expensive publicly funded infrastructure project in British Columbia’s history had big problems.  In fact, by the 1980s, BC Hydro had done tests showing that the ground at Site C had serious flaws “due to the… View Article

Massive public investment, not austerity, is the answer

Aug 18, 2020
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A depression is still around the corner if the Canadian government does not continue to radically intervene in the economy. We have all encountered the dark outlines of the crisis facing us by now. Everywhere there are warnings of mass unemployment unseen in decades, already vulnerable workers—young, racialized, women—hit hardest, entire industries at risk, a… View Article