Frontpage-feature

Time to get on board with free public transit

Sep 12, 2024
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The BC Green Party made the first big splash of the 2024 provincial election campaign with a major commitment to expand public transit, including a promise of “free public transit, province-wide” that has been widely criticized as being too costly. While shifting to free transit for everyone, everywhere could be fiscally and logistically challenging in… View Article
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Exploitable and deportable by design: Why migrant workers’ housing is harmful to their health

Sep 11, 2024
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Canada’s treatment of migrant workers is drawing international scrutiny after UN investigator Tomoya Obokata warned that its Temporary Foreign Worker Program “serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights.” Migrants, activists, and researchers, however, have known for… View Article

Addressing the racism of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Sep 2, 2024
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There is renewed attention on Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in the wake of the recent damning report from the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery that calls the program “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Yet, the central critiques and recommendations made in the UN report are being ignored… View Article

Cedar LNG: Chronicles of a petro-state in the age of climate change

Jul 31, 2024
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A final investment decision in June 2024 by Cedar LNG highlights the challenges and contradictions of BC’s climate and energy policies. For the BC government, this is the model industrial project: it creates jobs and development in the North, has a major Indigenous partner in the Haisla Nation and will meet the low-emissions target established… View Article

How BC’s oil and gas industry sidestepped carbon pricing

Jun 27, 2024
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When BC first introduced a carbon tax in 2008 the point was to apply it to all emissions causing climate change, but start at a low rate and increase it over time. Yet, as the carbon tax has increased for households at the gas pump and to heat homes, large industrial players—including the oil and… View Article
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Trapped in the wage gap

May 30, 2024
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On June 1, BC’s minimum wage is going up to $17.40 per hour. Despite this welcome pay raise for the 240,000 lowest-paid workers in the province, the minimum wage remains over $3 per hour lower than the lowest living wage in BC ($20.64 in Dawson Creek). In BC’s largest cities, Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria,… View Article