Frontpage-feature

Yep, it’s gouging: What we learned from the BCUC gas prices inquiry and what’s next

Sep 20, 2019

The BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) inquiry into gas prices delivered its bombshell final report on August 30. Among its key findings: at least 13 cents per litre of the higher gas prices at the pump over the past couple years is “unexplained” relative to what one would expect from a functioning competitive market. This is… View Article

BC’s Oil and Gas Commission: A captured regulator

Aug 14, 2019

By Ben Parfitt

In June 2015 “in an effort to expedite” the building of a pipeline by Alliance Pipeline Ltd., a company called Synergy Land Services submitted falsified documents to British Columbia’s Oil and Gas Commission. The documents were deliberately altered to suggest that archaeological work was done at two sites when in fact it had only been… View Article

How much do you have to earn to afford rent in Metro Vancouver?

Jul 18, 2019

By Marc Lee and David Macdonald

Metro Vancouver home prices have been in the news in recent months, not due to bidding wars and double-digit price increases, but because we are seeing the housing market in reverse. The total number of sales for both detached homes and condos are at multi-decade lows, and prices are falling. It’s still too early to… View Article

Why are we letting corporate medicine take hold in Vancouver’s new urgent care centres?

May 23, 2019

By Alex Hemingway

The BC government has rolled out a flurry of impressive measures to strengthen our public health care system over the past two years. Flying below the radar, though, is a new effort by for-profit corporations to push their way into BC’s health care system — and the Vancouver Coastal Health authority seems to be waving… View Article

Reality check: Only BC’s very richest paying higher tax rate

Mar 25, 2019

By Alex Hemingway

Under personal tax changes announced by the BC government over the past year and a half—including elimination of Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums—the vast majority of households are seeing their tax bills fall, while the richest 1% are paying more. This is good news for tax fairness in BC. In a fair system, we pay… View Article

Shaking the Peace: Fracking-induced earthquakes rattle BC Hydro execs and farmers alike

Mar 21, 2019

By Ben Parfitt

BC Hydro officials were so alarmed by an earthquake that shook the ground at its sprawling Site C dam construction project in late November, they ordered a halt to all work and got on the phone to British Columbia’s Oil and Gas Commission (OCG). The 4.5 magnitude earthquake was linked to natural gas company fracking… View Article

Nine things to know about BC Budget 2019

Feb 19, 2019

By Iglika Ivanova and Alex Hemingway

BC Budget 2019 delivers modest new investments in two key areas—poverty reduction and climate action—and maintains momentum on other files that implement the ambitious investments announced last year. Here are our highlights, fresh from the lockup. 1. New BC Child Opportunity Benefit The flagship announcement of BC Budget 2019—and likely of the upcoming first-ever BC… View Article

Five ways BC Budget 2019 could pave the way for a comprehensive poverty reduction plan

Feb 4, 2019

By Iglika Ivanova

This post is part of our BC Budget 2019 series, which highlights key findings from the CCPA’s research and outlines our recommendations for the 2019 provincial budget. Find more from the series at: policynote.ca/budget2019 In a province where poverty was ignored for too long, BC’s current government deserves credit for finally making poverty reduction a… View Article

Through the front door, then the back: How government methodically killed environmental oversight of major gas industry projects

Jan 23, 2019

By Ben Parfitt

Few regulations in British Columbia have died as quick and ignoble a death as a 2014 Order in Council exempting proposed natural gas plants from having to undergo environmental assessments. It was a change that fossil fuel companies drilling and fracking for natural gas in the northeast of the province had demanded for some time…. 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

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A progressive take on BC issues

A progressive take on BC issues

Frontpage-feature

Yep, it’s gouging: What we learned from the BCUC gas prices inquiry and what’s next

BC’s Oil and Gas Commission: A captured regulator

How much do you have to earn to afford rent in Metro Vancouver?

Why are we letting corporate medicine take hold in Vancouver’s new urgent care centres?

Reality check: Only BC’s very richest paying higher tax rate

Shaking the Peace: Fracking-induced earthquakes rattle BC Hydro execs and farmers alike

Nine things to know about BC Budget 2019

Five ways BC Budget 2019 could pave the way for a comprehensive poverty reduction plan

Through the front door, then the back: How government methodically killed environmental oversight of major gas industry projects

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