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Penticton’s peculiar policy on freedom of information
This is International Right to Know Week, a week in honour of the public’s right to information held by their governments. The week is being…
Privatizing public infrastructure is enormously costly. Let’s not repeat the mistake.
An announcement is expected next week on a plan for the long-awaited Victoria wastewater treatment plant, which has been the subject of ongoing controversy about…
The international trend to public energy
The most Canadians probably know about the new mayor of London, England is that he is the city’s first Muslim mayor and that one of…
In Edinburgh, the public private partnership walls are falling. Seriously. Walls are falling.
If 17 schools were closed in Vancouver, or Edmonton or Regina, because parts of them were at risk of falling down and injuring children, do…
Why not put some Metro Vancouver property transfer tax into infrastructure?
When it comes to revenue for the provincial government from property taxes in British Columbia, Metro Vancouver is such a cash cow we should be…
Province’s bump in home owner grant threshold is not the good deal suggested, especially for Metro Vancouver home owners
This week British Columbia’s provincial Finance Minister announced a $100,000 (9.1%) increase in the threshold for the province’s homeowner grant raising it to $1.2 million.…
BC Muni’s issue verdict on local government Auditor: They are polite but stupid
After more than three years of existence, chronic controversy and underperformance from British Columbia’s Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG), the Union of BC Municipalities…
TransLink boss salary of $319,244+? Peanuts
Lately, there has been quite a fuss about how much the top people at TransLink get paid to provide road and transit services in BC’s…
Legislative changes likely to reduce further the independence of the Auditor General for Local Government
Earlier this month British Columbians saw one more chapter unfold in the ongoing saga of the Auditor General for Local Government. The provincial government released…
Fire the Auditor General for Local Government? It’ll cost us
When BC Community Minister Coralee Oakes fired the Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG) last week the issue that had been in the news was…
Transit referendum: if no vote wins, what is Plan B?
I got my plebiscite ballot today and of course voted yes. Whatever you think of TransLink management, its governance, the rough and largely undefined edges…
The early and fatal undermining of TransLink
Pete McMartin wrote an excellent column in the Vancouver Sun documenting the many ways that the provincial government has undermined TransLink. The upcoming referendum isn’t the…