Provincial budget & finance

Why teachers are still striking

Sep 12, 2014
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Speech to the Langley Teachers Association’s Public Forum on Education Delivered July 16, 2014. Check against delivery. I have a slightly different take because I don’t come from the labour movement or from the education sector – I come as an economist, so I’m going to talk a little bit about numbers. But before I… View Article

BC’s Awkward Surplus

Sep 11, 2014
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On Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance reported results from the first quarter of 2014/15. While the news release stated “B.C.’s budget remains balanced in spite of extra costs,” there is a projected surplus of $266 million for the current fiscal year. In reality it will likely be much higher, due to the usual practice of using conservative planning… View Article

The dangers of deregulation extend beyond mining disasters

Aug 22, 2014
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The Mount Polley Mine disaster has raised important questions about the risks and costs of deregulation of the mining industry in BC. I spoke about this issue recently on CBC Vancouver’s Early Edition and CBC Kamloops’ Daybreak (if you missed it, there’s audio here, starts around 1:00:48). As a citizen and as a public interest… View Article

Will offsets be the “indulgences” for our LNG sins?

Jul 18, 2014
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In June 2014, the BC government reported on its progress towards the 2007 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, which calls for a one-third reduction by 2020 in GHG emissions (relative to 2007 levels) and an 80% reduction by 2050. The BC government claimed to have met a key milestone: an interim target of a 6%… View Article

BC’s controversial contract obligations dwarf its debt

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Most of the discussion around the delivery of British Columbia’s public accounts this week has centred on debt (Marvin Shaffer makes excellent points in the previous post on why debt is not always bad) and on how BC got the money to balance its books. Something else worth looking at, however, is British Columbia’s non-debt… View Article

The disconnect between economic growth and teachers’ wages

Jun 19, 2014
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A number of recent articles on the BC teachers’ strike have suggested that teachers could get the wage increases they want to see, as well as the needed investments in reducing class size and improving class composition, if only they supported resource development. Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation summed up the line of… View Article

Britain and British Columbia now moving in different directions on P3s. BC taxpayers may be the losers

May 20, 2014
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A dozen years ago when Gordon Campbell’s newly elected British Columbia government decided it wanted to build its infrastructure with public private partnerships (P3s) it turned to England for advice.  The British model for infrastructure shaped much of what BC did in the ensuing years.  Lately, British Columbia and the UK have been going in different… View Article

Don’t believe the (LNG) hype

Apr 30, 2014
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Today we released a new report, Path to Prosperity? A Closer Look at British Columbia’s Natural Gas Royalties and Proposed LNG Income Tax, about liquefied natural gas (LNG ) development in BC, and the public revenues that might be expected. So far, LNG has lacked a real public debate. On one side, we have the… View Article